Warriors: A Tale of Loss and Hope
by CupcakeLover7
Summary: What defines a hero? His victories? His actions? His morals or beliefs? His goals? Or his past? Join Ben Tennyson as he journeys through Runeterra, on the run from a past he wants to forget only to find friends and love along the way, making new memories while he's at it. But eventually, he must face the truth - Will his guilt devour him, or will he find peace in his mistakes?
1. Teaser: Bilgewater Showdown

**Hello there! I'm Cupcake! A casual League player and massive Ben 10 fan!**

**Now I'm sure you've heard of this before, but I'll say it anyway: This is a strange crossover.**

**I know, I know. This feels weird. It's one of those "completely different franchises that feel so far apart, they can't be seen in one place" kind of deal. Like, you wouldn't see a crossover of Drake and Josh with the Kids Next Door. (Shit, that actually sounds good)**

**But just like how peanut butter and beef don't sound good, you'll never know how it would turn out without trying! Don't ask why I tried to put peanut butter on beef, though.**

**For now, however, this is just a teaser. Hopefully, I can get the full chapter ready soon. So here's a taste of what's to come.**

* * *

Fog swirls around the city of Bilgewater as the creaking of wooden planks and the sound of footsteps on them echo through the entire area. For years, not many foreigners come here voluntarily unless they're desperate and seeking to buy anything and everything under the sun through all the illegal trades that have happened here. To many, all this place is murky waters, blood soaked sailors, gangs as it's only form of governance and sea monsters.

But to the people that actually live, it's all they know, and it's all what their life depends on.

However, what they didn't expect this very day was a strange visitor would come and liven things up.

In a run down bar, several dirty and strange characters gather around over cheap booze, random bar fights and rigged gambling. Men and women of types are here. Dirty but muscular men that have worked in the docks and hunted beasts, unkempt beauty for women, or the complete opposite, with fat men consumed by their own greed and lost hope to take care of themselves, or women who eat away all their feelings and express themselves through sarcasm to hide the tears. All in all, this establishment is full of unsavory folk, save perhaps one or two of them. One, being the owner of the bar, who's rotund but not to an extreme, and has somehow kept himself and his own counter clean from spilled alcohol, blood, knocked off teeth and bruises.

The other person that's as clean, if not cleaner, is a strange woman with elegant red hair and dark green eyes. Her top could barely conceal her own breasts as it exposes much of her cleavage while it leaves her midriff just as exposed. She has white cuffs on her arms extending up to her wrists and navy blue pants with small corsets on each side. In addition to this, she has a pirate captain's hat and boots in the same color as her pants.

The woman tosses a golden coin up into the air and catching it repeatedly, as if waiting for something while she's surrounded by people that look like they're waiting for the same thing. With their outfits being just as pirate themed as hers, one can assume they're a crew together with this redheaded beauty.

"Hey boss. Is that Ionian really going to be here?" One of them, male, with a prosthetic left arm and a rifle on his back, says to the woman, confirming their association.

The woman sighs, catching her golden coin containing the symbol of a tentacle filled kraken, and tips her hat lower to cover her face in annoyance. "He better be. Or else we just wasted our time here." She replies, her lips quivering in annoyance as while gripping her golden kraken coin in anger.

"We kept our end of the bargain. He needs to pay up or he's getting filled with lead and steel!" Another one of their crew, a very young girl with so many knives on her belt while she holds one in her hand, says almost enthusiastically to the point of blushing, that she may look like a sadistic psychopath. "Right, Fortune?"

The woman, addressed as their miss Fortune, lightly pats the girl's left cheek with her hand to calm her down, before Fortune tells her, "If we get the chance to, you'll be the first to do so."

The young girl giggles in glee at the thought of it while the rest of the crew remain composed on their tables and seats. Miss Fortune herself finally puts away her coin back to her pocket while she waits for whomever they have a deal with until...

**SLAM!**

The door to the bar opens and slams into the walls on either side. With the outside now visible, the patrons of the establishment can see the man responsible for this attention stealing entrance. His silhouette is highlighted by the pouring rain outside the building, alongside the occasional lightning that emphasizes his own shadow.

The people in the bar stare at his intimidating shadow that resembles a black beast underneath a hood as he suddenly sprouts giant wings...

...until he enters the bar and closes the door. The dim light provided by the torches inside the bar finally shows who he is.

A simple, young adult male with a hooded cloak around him while what seems to be a gigantic blue eagle donning armor of sorts resting on his left shoulder. The man pulls down his hood and reveals himself to be a brown haired, green eyed young man.

"Sorry about that. I didn't expect the doors to be so light. Must've pushed too hard." The young man says while the eagle perched on him wriggles and shakes to get rid of the rain water it got soaked on. "Don't worry about Valor here. He won't hurt anyone... Unless you provoke him."

Valor, the majestic armored eagle, makes a small screech to respond in accordance with it's master.

The arrival of this young man caught the attention of everyone inside, including Miss Fortune and her crew. They eye him properly as he heads towards the counter to talk to the bartender. "Is that him, boss?" Another one of the crew, this time, a man with an eyepatch on his left eye and a scar on his right, with three claws on each of his gauntlets over his arms, asks her.

"No. I talked to an old man about our contract. But this guy... Never seen him before." Miss Fortune tells them. This caught all their curiosity. There's a possibility that this man is a naive newcomer from a foreign land, and it could get entertaining real fast. "Just in case, get ready for a brawl." She adds, a smile forming on her face. Maybe for now, she can distract herself from her initial annoyance and find herself enjoying the outsider's incoming shenanigans.

"What's your cheapest drink here?" The young man asks as he takes a seat at the counter while the bartender wipes and cleans one of his mugs.

"Buhru Salt Juice. Costs one silver serpent." The bartender responds as he brings out a metallic but rusty bottle from underneath his cupboards and pours some of it's contents into the mug he was just cleaning before sliding it over to his new customer.

The young man takes a good look at his new drink and what he sees is... interesting, to say the least. Inside the mug is a strange, almost jelly-like dark purple liquid, bubbling continuously like it was swamp water. However, when he smells it, it has the smell of freshly ripened strawberries mixed with sweet mangoes.

All the other patrons in the bar smirk and smile, excited to see this foreigner complain at the drink's putrid appearance but elegant smell. Anyone who wants to save money by buying this affordable drink, but doesn't know what it is, will ask themselves: is it actually as good as it smells and it just _looks _horrible? Or is the smell just a way to lull people into a false sense of assurance? Either way, everyone loves it when an outsider immediately quits without even trying it.

Including Fortune and her crew, a smile forming on their faces, as they wait for him to back out.

But as if to defy every deity known in Runeterra, the young man forms a smirk on his own face, gives the mug a menacing glare, holds onto it's handle tight...

...and chugs it all down into his throat, gulping the entire content of the mug in a few seconds.

Aside from the bartender, who chuckles to himself and gives the man an almost proud smile, everyone else, even the supposedly unfettered Miss Fortune, could only open their mouth agape in surprise as he slams the mug back down on the counter and takes out 5 silver coins, containing symbols resembling a serpent wrapped around a cutlass. "I'll take the entire bottle!" The young man responds, his smug leer still on his face as his pet eagle, Valor, screeches in victory.

"Hahaha! Not bad, boyo!" The bartender tells him and gives the gutsy challenger the entire bottle. "What's your name?"

"Benjamin Tennyson, at your service. Call me Ben for short." The unwavering boy, who refers to himself as Ben, responds as he takes the bottle and takes another gulp of it. Once he's sure he halves the entire liquid, he slams the bottle down as well and wipes away some of it dripping from his lips before taking a sigh of relief.

"Hah! Well, Ben, you earned my respect. Some of these folks here don't take kindly to outsiders. They think they're all small fish in a pond filled with alligators. Well played on showing us what you're made of." The bartender replies. "I don't like how they think, so I really hoped you'd change things in me establishment."

"Yeah well, I didn't come just for this. I need some directions for something." Ben says back while everyone else in the bar has lost their mood and went back to doing what they're doing, a bit irrated that, in an incredibly rare chance, a foreigner had guts this time.

Everyone felt this way... except Miss Fortune, who lost her astonished expression and gains a curious gaze at Ben instead. She lost her perspective on him the moment he drank the Buhru Salt Juice, which is what's considered as the worst drink in this establishment for being extremely bitter, salt and sour at the same time and cannot even get you drunk enough to ignore it's terrible taste, with the only saving grace being that it smells good. Now, if she were stupid, she'd think he's just another Bilgewater resident, but Fortune is anything but.

She keeps her eyes on him to see more of how he acts and get a read on what kind of person Ben is.

"What directions do you need, boyo?" The bartender asks Ben and grand Ben's mug and places it on a nearby sink so he can wash it with the faucet.

Ben takes a deep sigh as Valor steps off his shoulder to perch on the counter this time. "Do you know any ships heading for Ionia?"

His words caught everyone's attention again. One of them even spit out what they were drinking in sheer shock. The bartender, who, up to this point, really liked Ben, lost his smile and stopped his faucet from pouring water into Ben's mug. "The hell is your business in Ionia?"

"Whoa, what's with the sudden vitriol?" Ben asks, pulling back his cloak a small bit so he can bring out his hands.

Miss Fortune is listening closely as well as observing him more and more. When Ben brought out his hands, she noticed that underneath the cloak, he has brown sleeves and is wearing green gloves with black fingers. However, she noticed something on his left sleeve. From what she could see from her spot, it look circular in shape, but in the center is a symbol of sorts. She can only make of half of it, but it looks a triangular shape of sorts over a green background. Assuming it's symmetrical, it may have another triangular shape parallel to the other, which would make the symbol look like an hourglass.

"Interesting... A symbol I'm not familiar with..." Miss Fortune whispered to herself as she crosses her arms and keeps her sights on Ben.

"Ionian folks are high and mighty pieces of scuttle crab crap and we don't take kindly to smug dogs like them around here." The bartender responds, and as if on cue, nearly every single patron in the bar held onto whatever weapon they have. Some had sabers and swords, sheathed on their belts. Some had guns, with pistols in holsters or rifles on their backs. Some had unorthodox ones, like spears, tridents and harpoons.

Ben, with a sigh of annoyance, massages his temple before responding, "I'm not Ionian, if that's what you're thinking. I'm headed there because someone owes me and I need to collect from them. That still bad for you?"

His words caught more of Fortune's attention. A stranger with beef against an Ionian? Very interesting. Not to mention, it coincides with her and her crew's current job. Maybe she can use this to her advantage. The beautiful bounty hunter smirks, stands up and struts towards Ben at the counter.

"I find that hard to believe, boyo..." The bartender responds and takes out a clever and threateningly brings it down and lodges it an inch away from Ben's hand. "You better start explaining before I lose any respect I just had for you."

"Leave him alone, Bauman. The kid's just asking for directions." Miss Fortune defuses the situation, approaching the counter with a small sway to her step before sitting on the counter itself in an almost seductive manner, crossing her legs with her back turned against Bauman the bartender. "Does it really matter what he's doing afterwards? The boy paid you for booze. Let him have a ship. Besides, he could be telling the truth. He might kick an Ionian's ass for you giving him what he wanted."

"Oh... S-Sorry, Fortune. I was just..." Bauman wanted to say, but Miss Fortune turns around and puts a finger on his old lips in a sensual way. Ben, a bit confused at Miss Fortune's antics, chooses to just let it play out and take another sip from his Buhru Salt Juice bottle while he watches her do her thing.

With a charming smile, Miss Fortune tells Bauman in an alluring tone, "Shhhh. It's okay. You were just concerned for everyone here. That's understandable. Let me handle him, okay?"

"Y-Yes... Miss Fortune." Bauman conceded, making the dominant woman smile and get off the counter before facing Ben.

"Ben, was it? Got some business in the First Lands?" The bounty hunter leader asks the foreigner.

Ben nods, still drinking the rest of his bottle before finishing it, placing the bottle down. A trickle of the purple liquid is still on his lips, running down his chin, so he wipes it away with the back of his gloved, left hand.

The way he moved his left hand caused his sleeve to drop a bit, which confirmed what Miss Fortune was thinking. Ben is wearing a strange relic of sorts as a watch, with the symbol being an hourglass symbol, like she suspected.

"Yeah. You're Fortune, right? I mean, that's what he called you." Ben replies while pointing at Bauman with his thumb before Valor flies over the young man and perches back on his shoulder.

"Let's talk." Fortune offers him before snapping her fingers towards her crew, who all salute and head outside of the bar ahead of the two.

* * *

The rain is still pouring as the two travel through the wooden plank-filled port of Bilgewater. Miss Fortune is ignoring the water pouring over her as the raindrops bounce of her captain's hat. Ben himself put back his hood and wrapped his cloak around him while Valor remains on his shoulder, ignoring the rain as well.

"Mind telling me what's this about, Miss Fortune?" Ben asks as he keeps up with Fortune's steps, heading for a different part of the port.

"You're in Slaughter Docks, Benjamin. Worst place in Bilgewater that's also our best way of income around these parts. You're not getting any help in Bauman's bar or anywhere near there, including the entire dock itself." Fortune explained and leads the young man somewhere else by taking a left, just past a hunting boat.

The moment Ben follows her and takes the same turn as her, he is surprised by what the bounty hunter had lead him to.

A massive pirate ship. Decorated with beautiful gold and ivory paint, with a beautiful varnish golden brown on certain areas, with the ship's figurehead resembling that of a strange woman with tentacles for a beard coming from beneath her nose and on her chin, while she holds onto the bowsprit of the ship like it was a spear above her head.

The ship was magnificent to behold, and that's not even getting into the sight of the crew working together to bring up the mast and operate it as Fortune climbs on the rope ladder leading to the deck.

"Don't just stand there and stare at my big, beautiful ship. You wanted a ride to Ionia, didn't you?" Miss Fortune shouts to him through the loud drops of rain around them before lightning flashes and thunder raced.

Ben smiles and takes a small chuckle as he pets Valor on his shoulder. "We're going to go see them again, Valor." He happily tells his companion, who nuzzles his head and beak towards Ben's cheek as a response. The young man then runs for the ship as Fortune gives a smirk to herself and continues climbing.

Upon climbing the rope ladder, however, Ben and Valor are greeted by a sight they really wished they didn't see.

Fortune and her entire crew, gathered together and aiming their weapons at Ben. Ben's smile drops to a scowl while each and every single one of the Fortune crew is grinning from ear to ear, from Fortune's bruiser that's as large as a rhinoceros and built like a tank, to the girl from earlier, aiming all her knives at Ben's neck while she holds one knife by her teeth and breathing heavily like an animal in heat.

"Let's get something straight here, punk. We don't offer free rides to just anyone. You will pay us, one way or another. Our ship isn't a pleasure cruise. It's a vessel for pirate hunters like us, and we recently got a job from an Ionian geezer but he hasn't shown up in a while. You're on your way to Ionia so I thought we can pick up and see what we can do with you, tough guy." Fortune tells him before stepping on his left hand holding onto the rope ladder.

Despite the pain and massive amounts of pressure the crew leader is placing on his hand, Ben keeps his scowl while Valor screeches in anger.

"I'll take your silence as you willing to listen, so I'll keep this brief. You're a foreigner. Don't care where you're from, but here in Bilgewater, we look out for each other. You're not from here so we don't care about you, but you're headed for Ionia and we need to see someone from there too. So if you want to reach Ionia alive and stay that way when we part ways, you play along with us and don't do anything that upsets anyone in the crew. Especially Little Knives over here." Miss Fortune continued and points at the girl with the knives.

Without even a warning, Little Knives moves closer to Ben, takes out the knife in her mouth and suddenly cuts Ben's cheek, startling him as blood drips from his small wound. And to shock him more, Knives licks the blood off his cheek and pulls Ben close by his collar. "Your blood is so sweet! Everyone else was so bitter! I want to see more of it!" Knives shamelessly tells Ben without a care for personal space and keeps her face near his. "Can I kill him now, Fortune?!" She adds with a big grin on his face and her knife an inch away from his throat. "I want to cut apart his pretty face and sleep with his body every night!"

"Geez, Knives! Calm down!" One of them, the other young man with a rifle from the bar earlier, shouts to the murder happy girl while massaging his forehead.

"Yeah. I mean we can just shoot him and get it over with. The blood is just gonna stain the entire deck. And I'm NOT cleaning the deck again after the last job!" Another, a girl about Fortune's age, wielding a harpoon and a trident on her back, tells her crazy companion.

The big, giant muscular man chuckles however, and crosses his humongous arms, and tells his fellow crewmates, "It will not be as much. He is a tiny man after all."

"Calm down. All of you. We still need him. But if he messes up and hurts anyone here... Feel free to fillet him, Knives." Fortune tells them, which makes Knives giggle and lick Ben's blood off again before kissing him on the cheek. It did nothing but annoy Ben as she backs away on all fours as he faces Fortune again, still ignoring the pain her foot is putting on his left hand. "So, here's the deal, Tennyson. We take you to Ionia but in exchange, you give us something we ask for."

"What do you want?" Ben responds with a dry tone. Whatever enthusiasm or happiness he had prior to this had all vanished and he gives the entire crew a glare. But from the way he's looking at them, it was as if this isn't his first time to be taken advantage of like this.

"Straight to the point. I like it. Since you asked, I have been looking at you for a while now and I have to say... I like what I see~" Fortune spoke in her lustful voice as she kneels down and caresses Ben's cheek... before reaching for his left wrist, taking her foot off his hand and lifting his arm up to make his sleeve drop to reveal his watch-like relic. "What is this?" Fortune demands from the young man. "Looks expensive, from my point of view. Keeping a close eye on it ever since bought that Buhru Salt Juice from Baumann."

This time, however, Ben finally regains his jovial attitude and suddenly smiles back at Fortune as he reaches for this strange relic of sorts. "It's hard to explain. How about I show you?" He suddenly tells her before he touches the hourglass symbol on his watch, whichcauses the relic to bring out a dial of sorts from it's casing and the silhouette of a strange, humanoid being pops out as a hologram.

Fortune and her crew wanted to ask what the hell did he just do, but they immediately got their answer when Ben slams down the dial and gets engulfed in bright, general light as Valor steps off his owner and fly off Ben. This sudden flash of light blinds most of the crew, causing them to back away and forces Fortune to let go of Ben's hand.

Lightning flashes and the rain started to slow down and drop lesser and lesser as the crew sees the emerald light engulfing Ben as it rises from the ladder and gets on the deck.

When the light dies down, what the crew sees surprised them to the point of sending their mouths agape.

In Ben's place is taller, humanoid being made entirely of rocks encompassed by magma and hot lava. His feet have a strange slight oval-like design with only two toes and one back toe, while his fingers have been reduced from 10 to 8, losing one finger on each hand. The most distinguishable part of him, however, was that his strange, almost alien-like head, is also burning with a bright flame that makes it look like he has an infernal mane.

Lastly, he contains a similar hourglass symbol from his watch earlier on his chest.

With the weak rain still pouring, each water droplet turns into small pockets of steam each them they strike this flaming being's literally hot body.

Silence was next to happen as the burning beast stares down at them while Valor had taken a new spot on some of the ropes holding the mast, perching on it to watch what will happen.

"What... What the hell are you?" Miss Fortune demands from this fiery beast.

"Well, just for you baby, call me Heatblast." Ben, or rather, Heatblast, tells Fortune before he suddenly starts spinning in place, creating a whirlwind of flame that forces the crew to back away, but they were unprepared when the tornado started throwing out fireballs. The crew is forced to dodge and weave away from each attack, as each fireball misses, flying over the ship and ending up in the water.

The moment Heatblast stops, each crew member began charging towards him, with Knives moving in first. However, Heatblast simply grabs her by her hair and pulls her up like a brat. When Little Knives tries to break free by attacking Heatblast with her knife, it simply shatters on impact with his rocky body. She tries it over and over again but each knife keep breaking.

Heatblast sighs at the sight of the young delinquent try and fail multiple times, however, he sees the rest of the crew coming at him with spears, harpoons and guns. In a quick maneuver none of them saw coming, Heatblast brings Knives forward and uses her as a shield, which actually causes all of them to halt in their tracks and lower their weapons.

"Read you guys like a book. You all looked close, like a family. The way you looked at each other, talked to one another. Plus, your boss literally said that you all look out for each other. So if I use Knives as a human shield, you won't go through your attacks." Heatblast spoke in a tone that demanded attention, silencing everyone, including Fortune herself.

The rifle toting boy grit his teeth and gripped hard on his gun as he attempts to approach the fiery being holding his companion, as he says, "You scumbag, piece of-"

He stops his endeavor, however, when Fortune raised her hand and pushes him back, all while keeping her glade towards Heatblast. With a small nod, she gestures him to continue, to which the flaming man adds "I wasn't actually going to let you hurt her if you _did _ignore Knives and shoot through her just to get to me. But I just knew you guys wouldn't that. If you had defied my expectations, I would have been very angry that you would hurt your own comrade all so you could hurt an enemy. But you didn't and earned some of my respect in that regard."

"What would you know about respect, little man?" The bulky bruiser from earlier comments, but Heatblast raises a finger with the hand he's not using to hold Knives up.

"More than you imagine, big guy. I respect Miss Fortune here enough because she's just looking out for you guys, even _if _that meant exploiting and taking advantage of an outsider... But I'm not just some outsider. I've seen a lot of action that can match anything you guys may have done." Heatblast tells them, lowering his other hand before finally letting go of Knives. The girl wanted to attack the shapeshifter right then and there for making an embarrassment of her, but she takes a look at Fortune and it earned her a shake from her head, telling her otherwise. The psychopathic youngster grumpily grumbles and backs away, joining the rifle boy's side while Heatblast continues. "As evidenced by what I've been doing, I'm not naive. I've been able to read you guys in just a few seconds while I keep surprising all of you for past couple of minutes, from the bar until here. Granted, I don't know what trick you guys have, but the moment I see them, I'll eventually overcome them. I got a lot more up my literal sleeve that I'll eventually find a solution to whatever problem you give me. So stop acting like you know me just as much as any other person you've all taken advantage of. I'm NOTHING like them."

This silenced them all. And as if the gods themselves agree with him, the rain stopped pouring altogether and thunder and lightning had vanished, almost like nature is dramatically helping him set the mood.

It was Miss Fortune's turn to scowl as she faced Heatblast to ask him, "What do _YOU _want?!"

"The only reasons I didn't burn your entire ship right now is because I still need something to get me across the seas and to Ionia... and also because I'm not so cruel that I'd burn all your progress and your only source of income, like you said." Heatblast tells them, crossing his arms.

The crew looks around that despite his first and only attack against them, not a single fireball hit any part of the ship. He wasn't wildly flailing hid attacks earlier. There we just a show of force and a taste of what he can do to them at any point if he tried taking them on seriously. The fireballs he threw end up last the ship and into the waters to their side, harmlessly hitting literally nothing but air. The only thing scorched is the floor beneath his feet when he spun around earlier and made a small tornado of flame.

All of these did not escape Fortune's notice either, so internally, she gave him credit for that, but she's still not convinced unless he tells her and her crew the point.

"Get to the point!" Knives yelled at Heatblast, putting into words what her captain was thinking.

"Fine. Here's the new deal. Get me to Ionia and I'll give you whatever money I have now. You're never taking off the Omni- I mean... My relic... off of my wrist. I've tried. Several times." Heatblast tells them.

A different member of the crew, who seems to be a tall man wearing knuckle dusters and has a scar over his lips, suddenly comments, "Not if we cut off your wrist!"

"With what? Scissors? Then you'll stomp me out with a big boot once you've taken it? Yeah, no. Not happening either. Someone from Noxus tried to cut off my arm with a giant axe and this relic released a charge so powerful, it cratered the execution room and blew him and everyone else surrounding me off of me. And if they can't remove it, what chance do you guys have?!" Heatblast replies to him. The knuckle duster wielding hunter wanted to retort, but he had lost his words, and did not know what to say, who he just shut himself up. "That's my final offer. I don't want to have to destroy this ship just to keep proving my point that you don't want to mess with me. Because you don't. You don't like me, but I almost liked you all until this crap you're pulling on me. You're not in charge of me but I'm not charge of any of you either. But we all just want to go to Ionia for two different reason, but still the same place. So instead of making enemies with each other, how about we all suck it up for one singular trip, you'll be a couple of holds richer, and then we never see each other again. Deal?"

Heatblast held out his hand towards Miss Fortune for a handshake, but all he receives from her is a scowl, her hand slapping away his own and her turning her back on him.

"...Just this once. If we ever see you again after all this... You'll be sleeping with the fishes." She responds in kind instead as she looks at him from behind before turning away and heading for her quarters, all while the rest of the crew look back and forth towards their captain and Heatblast.

"Good enough." escaped from the mouth of Heatblast before he walks towards the front of the boat while Valor flies towards him and perches on the railing in front of the flaming man.

The crew members then all begin to walk away and head for their respective sections of the ship to sail it properly. Some members where headed for the same area so they began speaking amongst themselves.

"Nobody has frustrated boss like this in a long time."

"Yeah. Last one that did was Gangplank, and this foreigner is reaching her angriest levels of stress."

"I think he's bluffing. There's no way someone like him can handle us!"

"There's no way for us to know if we can handle him either!"

Each word they spoke were all heard by both Heatblast and Fortune, but neither one cared. Something is on their minds right now, and it's each other. Heatblast really just wanted to get to Ionia. He was even willing to pay them with everything he had in his person, but Fortune just had to make it difficult. And Fortune herself just didn't trust Ben at all, so she was being cautious and wanted to make sure to show him she's in charge, but not only did he talk back, he had the power to back it up.

With this peculiar stalemate they put themselves into, both parties have no choice but to work with teeth clenched and tolerate each other until they can finally get rid of each other once they reach Ionia.

Once everyone has reached their stations, the girl with the harpoon earlier man's the ship's steering wheel while some of the crew changes the direction of the mast while pulling down the sail so they can turn vessel around. Eventually, they turn around and sail into the open seas.

While the crew commandeers the ship, Heatblast takes a deep sigh and taps symbol on his chest and it flashes another bright, emerald light, turning himself back into human form. He then starts petting Valor on his head, which the giant eagle takes in delight before shaking his head to dry himself, soaking Ben's face in the process. But the shapeshift didn't mind and laughs it off before wiping away the trickles of rain from his face and continues petting Valor.

"You're a good boy, Valor. I don't know what I'd have done if you weren't there for me." Ben tells his companion. The blue eagle responds by getting off the railing to perch back on his shoulder and nuzzle his against Ben's head, causing the young man to smile. "Although, I feel like traveling with me has softened you up."

Taking this more of an insult, the proud bird does not take it in stride and spreads his wings wide and open before doing a proper and loud screech, as if to tell Ben that he's still a warrior. This display of pride from the eagle made Ben chuckle heartily and smiles at his feathered friend. "Alright, alright. I guess you haven't lost your touch. But for now, don't hurt anyone here... Unless they start the fight, then feel free to attack. But no gouging out eyes. Okay?"

Ben's words sunk in for the bird, but Valor tilted his head when Ben told him to not go for the eyes of his enemies, which causes his master to sigh and adds, "Look, I know that's what you're used to, but you can't gouge out people's eyes. That's immoral. I know it's what Qu-" He suddenly stopped when he was about to mention someone and looks down at the floor before leaning on the railings of the ship. "... I know it's what she taught you, but you don't have to keep doing it. Especially since..."

Once again, he stopped. He couldn't even bare to look at Valor out of shame for some reason. He kept his gaze elsewhere while the bird stayed perched on him. But while he does so, Valor himself seems a bit more concerned for Ben as he moves closer to his face and tries to peck it lightly.

"... I'm fine, Valor. We should rest while we can... It's gonna be a long trip." Ben tells his fowl companion, finally looking back at him to pat him on the head.

But this was cut short when...

"Captain! Look!"

Fortune comes running out of her cabin as she takes out two hand cannons from her holsters and runs at the back of the ship. Ben sees that everyone is gathering there, so his curiosity has been peaked, making him run towards the gathering crew.

Upon arriving at the quarter deck, Ben, as well as the rest of the crew are extremely surprised at what they see.

A colossal, 100 foot sea monster angrily glaring at them. It is a giant, bipedal creature with four webbed legs and a tail with a fin. It has two tentacles coming out of her mouth which act like two extra arms, blue eyes, golden teeth and six gills on it's neck. The upper part of it's body is dark cyan, while the lower part is olive.

"Krakken..." Fortune whispers to herself as she, her crew, Ben and Valor stare at it in utter surprise. "Battle stations!"

"Wait, you can't fight it with artillery! Krakkens are-" Ben tries to warn her, but Fortune holsters the hand cannon on her right hand and grabs Ben's collar and pulls him close.

With a glare on her face as her crew run and prepare for a fight in the background, Fortune tells Ben with a rage fueled tone, "Don't lecture me on how to fight sea monsters, punk! I live in Bilgewater, where we hunt these things! I know damn well that that thing is fast and agile. I know how to deal with it and I know how to kill it! So either hide in the brig, or you help us fight that thing, since you apparently know how to deal with one too!"

"Can you stop yelling at me for once and cooperate with me? I've done nothing to warrant all this hate from you. This only happened because you started taking advantage of me being a foreigner!" Ben pointed out, just as the krakken lets loose a bellowing roar and dives into the ocean.

"You don't know who I am nor do you know what I've been through. If you did, you'd know why I don't trust people like you!" Fortune fired back.

"You're right! I don't! But if all you do is push people away, then you're making more enemies than friends. You'll be endangering the lives of your crew more if you keep doing that. So maybe, even just this once, trust someone. Trust me. Let me help you. I'm not your enemy here. Tell me a plan like you do with your crew." Ben responds, the look on his face turning from anger to concern.

Ben and Fortune enter another staring contest right into each other's eyes. The longer they do so, the more they start to see each other's reflection on each other's eyes. Ben can tell that Fortune had the eyes of someone who had lost a lot and didn't want it to happen again, even if it meant looking like a monster to everyone else. And to Fortune, Ben's eyes are almost the same. But what he does do after loss is something she never saw in her own: hope. She doesn't know him, but a good look and she could tell he lost just as much but for some reason, he still managed to cling onto what little light he could find while surrounded by darkness that wanted him to give in, unlike her, who did and became what she is today.

With a sigh of acceptance, Fortune lets go of Ben's collar and takes out her hand cannon again. "Don't make me regret this." She tells him before running for the upper deck, to which Ben follows her to.

"You won't." Ben replies and joins her side at the steering wheel while the rest of the crew prepare the ship for a sea monster battle. Some of them had already entered the lower deck to man the cannons on each side.

"What's the plan, captain?" The harpoon lady on the wheel asks her boss, who grabs a nearby telescope lying on the top of an empty barrel.

Looking through the spyglass, Fortune sees that the Krakken, for some reason, swam ahead of them, it's fin sticking out of the water. It then took a very sharp turn and is heading straight for them like a speeding torpedo. "Turn the ship to the left as hard as you can the moment it becomes a couple of feet away from us and I'll have the cannons fire once we turn to our side. Keep the ship steady until then, Durga."

Durga, the one in charge of the wheel, salutes Fortune and says, "Aye aye, captain!"

"Ben, turn into that flaming form of yours and shoot as much flame into the water as you can the moment we shoot it with enough cannonballs and create a wall of steam for us as cover." Fortune orders her new acquaintance.

"Sure. I can do that." Ben smirks and heads back down the stairs while Valor followed him.

"Are you sure it's okay to trust him?" Durga asks Fortune, who watches Ben run ahead to the front deck and stand just behind the boat's bowsprit, with Valor flying circles above him as he touches his relic and he starts spinning the dial.

"… For now, at least. Just get ready to spin that wheel harder than you ever did before." Fortune replies.

Everyone on board prepares for the speeding Krakken as it tears through the waters in speeds no sea monster had done before. Durga keeps her sights on it as it nears them while Ben prepares the hologram of Heatblast hovering above the dial.

Each crew member had sweat dripping from their face down to their chins and even on the tip of their noses. Each unit of distance the beast takes to reach them is every second each crew member holds their weapon tighter and tighter. This is not their first sea monster to fight and they swear to Fortune, this won't be their last either. While this is the fastest they've ever seen, it hardly matters to any of them.

Today, it's just another quota filled. And while this doesn't stop them from still being scared of the possibility of death either, their pride as Bilgewater hunters far outweigh their fears.

So when the Krakken was finally close enough, Durga spun the ship around and had the right side of the vessel face the beast, with the cannons on the right all aiming at it.

"FIRE!" Fortune yelled with vigor and command as the right side cannons unload all their ammunition into the beast, all while Ben slams down the dial, turns into Heatblast once again, and heads for the side to blast the water with large wave of hot flames, creating enough steam to engulf and hide the boat.

Disoriented by the amount of cannon fire it took, the Krakken was forced to rise from the depths and shake it's head, only to be greeted by the fog of steam around it, covering every direction and effectively making the monster blind.

Without a clue as to where the ship may be now, it didn't even have enough time to retreat back underwater as several roped harpoons and spears flew from in front of it and lodged into it's skin.

It turns out, the ship never changed directions once the steam had formed, and the crew began their attempts to capture it by using their harpoons to keep it in place.

The beast, angered by these humans trying to kill it, roars and bellows so loud, that it's breath was strong enough to clear the fog of war and regain it's vision on the enemy.

"Keep firing!" Fortune tells her crew, and so they did, with the cannon crew below deck reloading and firing again while the rest took out their guns and shot at the beast.

And thinking this is the best time to follow up, Heatblast gathers heat into his hands and cups them together, gathering more and more till he eventually couldn't contain it anymore and he lifts up his hands, revealing the heat he had gathered had become a gigantic fireball that's the size of the Krakken's head.

With one mean swing, Heatblast then tosses the colossal ball of flames at the beast. With it's movements restrained due to the roped harpoons embedded onto it's body, it could not dodge the burning being's attack as the fireball explodes on impact of it's face, creating a massive explosion that could be seen from miles.

* * *

**TO BE CONTINUED…**

* * *

**And that's it for now. Don't worry, I promise that the actual chapter is longer! We'll get to see the whole Krakken fight, then meet some Ionian characters like Akali and Shen and go on an adventure!**

**But for now, I bid you all farewell for now. Tell me what you think, and I'll be sure to address them on the next chapter!**

**See you all around!**


	2. Chapter 1: Don't Turn Away Now

**Author's Notes: And here it is, folks! The proper chapter! Sorry it took a while. Busy with real life problems and stuff. Mostly renouncing my partnership with an old friend that pushed me and my other friend away. But it's okay now. Being an independent writer would be a lot more fun anyway.**

**Well, no need to dwell on it! Please enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

**_~O~_**

**_Ben... Are you afraid of death?_**

_No... But I'm afraid of you._

**_...Why?_**

_Because you're not real._

**_...Is that what you tell yourself?_**

_No... It's what you told me._

**_~O~_**

* * *

It was a cold night in the heavily mechanized and tech-filled city of Piltover as the cold wind cuts like steel on thin grass. As very few citizens not dare to move through the streets and alleys in the dead of night, the city is mostly quiet. However, the law enforcement themselves are busy as a new case is brewing.

Down the steel hallways of Piltover's police station, a woman in a strange outfit and outfitted with gear makes her way down.

Dressed in a grey jumpsuit, purple pants adorned with armor, steampunk goggles worn over her head, her short, pink hair with a smaller, longer strand flowing through the slight breeze from the windows, and, the two strangest and noticeable things about her, two gigantic gauntlets and the Roman numerals "VI" tattooed onto her left cheek, the woman only known as Vi, the Piltover Enforcer, stifled a yawn as she moved through the gilded chamber at the heart of Piltover's Hall of Law. Dawn was less than an hour old, and the place was quiet. A few drunks were sleeping it off in the shaming cells, and she'd heard there were a couple of chem-augmented thugs in the deeper, more secure lock-ups. She'd ask around later, see if she could provide any insight as to what they were doing up in Piltover.

She rolled her shoulders, the muscles there stiff after a hard night's work. It had been a long shift, and her forearms were aching from the pressure of her powered gauntlets. All she wanted to do was go back home, get them off, and bathe her fists in ice water. Maybe throw back a few glasses of something strong and sleep some, but the pnuema-tube from a friend of her's had been full of imperatives about getting herself down to the district house on the double. Vi had cocked an eyebrow, tossed the message and given it an hour before leaving her cramped home in the dressmakers-quarter to answer Caitlyn's summons.

"Hey, Harknor," she said to the desk-warden when she reached the cells. "What's so important Caitlyn has to drag me from an erotic dream about—"

"Ah, ah, stop right there," said Harknor without looking up from his elevated desk as he ran a finger down the list of prisoners brought in during the night. "I'm not in the mood to hear another of your lurid fantasies."

"Well I definitely do."

The two avert their attention away from one another to see back where Vi had come from, a boy with brown hair, green eyes, a strange watch on his left wrist and a white jacket with green lines across it's side. His pants are navy blue, and his combat boots as black as the night.

"Evening, Vi." The young man says to the enforcer as he approaches her and the warden. Hi and the boy then share a smile to one another and bump their fists before Vi puts an arm around her companion's shoulders.

"'Sup, Muffin." Vi affectionately called the boy before nudging him closer to the desk with her. "Where's Cupcake?"

"I thought she'd be here. Caitlyn usually leaves a message to tell me where she's going, but apparently, whatever's going on here has my big sister running in without even bothering to tell me. So I came here to check." The boy replied before holding on Vi's gauntlet like he was holding her hand.

Vi scoffed and slightly taps the boy's forehead with her own, like a weak headbutt, before turning her gaze back at Harknor, remembers what she was going to say and looks back at the boy. "Well I'm sure she's fine. She usually is. You wanna hear about my dream?"

"You know I always do." The boy replies to her with a smile.

"Don't encourage her, Tennyson." Harknor interrupted them as he massages his temple with frustration. "Sometimes I wonder which one of you is the bad influence to the other... I swear I'm gonna get a migraine from both of you..."

Vi chuckled before telling her dear warden, "You sure you don't wanna hear, Harknor? It's got a plot and everything! Heck, Muffin was there. He and I got really down."

"Oooh!" The boy got even more curious as he cups his chin as he looked at Vi. Unfortunately, the warden was not having it and put a moratorium on their conversation.

"Quite sure," said Harknor, looking away from the two poor excuses for professional officers and holds out the charge sheet. "Back on topic, Caitlyn and Mohan brought in a hextech thief last night. He hasn't said a word to anyone, but she thinks you might be able to get him to talk." The warden hands the Piltover Enforcer the file that she takes with her free hand, still keeping her other arm around her friend.

Vi arched an eyebrow as she scanned the page. Inspecting not just the crime committed, but the name of the thief as well. Once she does, she hands the sheet back to Harknor before finally letting go of "Muffin".

"Devaki, huh? You've been a very naughty boy," she said, rolling her eyes and curling her metaled fingers into a fist. "Yeah, Devaki and I knew each other back in the day. I'll get him to talk." The moment she finished her sentence, she notices that her friend is still here, causing her to smirk and look back at Harknor to correct herself. "Scratch that. WE'LL make him talk."

"He's not a high enough rank to be—" The warden was going to stop her but Vi slams her right gauntlet's palm on the desk and looks at Harknor straight into his eyes.

"Then I invoke my right as his superior officer to allow him to come with me." Vi demands of her warden as she maintains her smile, prompting Harknor to facepalm and sigh out of frustration. The boy himself could not help but chuckle at Vi going out of her way to try and get him to come with her. It's a little heartwarming for him as much as it is humorous.

Harknor then shook his head, saying, "Fine... But I need you both to listen. I don't want to have to call the surgeon back here again. Caitlyn wants this fella to able to speak when he goes before the procurator."

"Okay, I've been asking since I got here, but where is she anyway?" asked the boy. "She isn't even here to say hello?"

"Your sister's chasing down a lead at the docks," said Harknor. "Said she figured you could handle this one on your own. She wrong about that?"

"Nope," said Vi, turning and sashaying toward the cells. "Which cell's Devaki in?"

"Number six. But remember, he's got to be able to talk!"

Vi nodded and said, "Yeah, yeah... Come on, Muffin. We got someone to punish."

"Yes, ma'am!" The boy happily ripostes and hurries to her side, all the while the two could hear Harknor groan in frustration once again.

Down the corridor leading to the sixth cell, the boy and Vi share a friendly conversation to keep themselves updated about one another, as well as pass the short time they have before interrogating Devaki. "So... What'd you earlier? Before going home, then coming here to find Cupcake?"

"Ah, it was nothing special. Went out for smoothies, checked out that weird fountain being built in the park, then I decided to just stay at home and play X'ah." The boy replies as he rolls his shoulders and stretches his arms before placing his hands at the back of his head in a lax manner.

"You still play that game? It sounds really boring, especially with all the weird rules and necessary pieces you need for the game," Vi comments and puts her arm around "Muffin" once again. "Who do you even play it with?"

The boy shrugs, telling her, "Who else but Ezreal?"

"You know he's wanted here, right?" Vi points out, but her friend shrugs again and smiles at her.

"He's harmless. Besides, he's wanted in Noxus and Shurima too. So it's not like he'll cause _that _much trouble or else he'll invoke the wrath of three separate nations."

Vi rolls her eyes and pulls the boy in close to give him a noogie with her other gauntlet. "Spoken like a true hero."

The two eventually reached cell six and Vi slid back the locking bar. Normally, another warden would secure the door, but Vi didn't need anyone at her back. She knew Devaki from the old days, even worked with him a few times before the job with the Factorywood Fiends went bad. Devaki was a thief, not a fighter, and if she needed backup to restrain his scrawny frame, then it was time to find a new line of work. She only brought in "Muffin" because she didn't want to leave her friend hangin' and just waiting at desk alone. Plus, he's more "company" than back up.

Devaki was sitting on the edge of the chipped hunk of stone they called a bed with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. He cradled one arm close to his body, the limb ending at a bandaged stump where his hand ought to be. He looked up as the two officers entered, and his eyes widened in surprise.

"Vi?"

"Piltover's finest," she said with a petite curtsey that, despite where he sat, made Devaki smile. "What happened to your hand?"

"Your damn sheriff shot if off," he said. "What happened to yours?"

"I got an upgrade," said Vi, holding up her hextech gauntlets. They hummed with a low buzz and she turned them around to let Devaki see just how powerful they were. "Fully customizable with variant levels of hurt. I can punch through walls with these babies."

"Yeah, I heard what happened to the Ecliptic Vaults," said Devaki with an easy smile, as if he was talking to the old Vi, the Vi from the Lanes. He wasn't bright enough to know that that Vi wasn't the one standing in front of him.

Devaki held up the arm ending in a stump. "I'm gonna need an upgrade too. This was a high-end augment from Bronzio's. That sheriff didn't need to shoot it off..." Devaki then noticed Vi's friend, leaning on the entrance's frame as he watches Vi work. "Who's the squirt? Your bodyguard? Wanna make sure I don't do anything funny?"

"Opposite, actually. He's here to make sure _I _don't go too far."

Devaki, unable to process her words fast enough, could only utter the words, "Like what?"

"Like this," said Vi, closing the distance between them in two strides and lifting Devaki off his feet. She threw him against the opposite wall, rattling his bones and sending plaster dust billowing into the air. While this happens, "Muffin" smiles at the Piltover Enforcer, waving his hand in front of him to fan away the dust coming his direction.

Devaki slid to the floor, shocked and gasping for breath. "They've been playing nice so far, but now they send you in? What gives?"

"I'm the one they send in when asking all polite doesn't get you anywhere, biscuit," said Vi, letting the power build in her gauntlets. "I'm the one who'll go to town on you with these beauties. Unless, of course, you tell me what I want to know."

"Whoa, wait! Vi, what are you doing?" spluttered Devaki, holding his remaining hand out before him as he scrambled to his feet.

"I'm interrogating you, what's it look like?"

"But you haven't asked me anything!"

Vi cocked her head to the side, realizing what she had just done. Her friend even audibly confirms this to her when he tells her, "He's not wrong. You just started going bad cop on him."

"Yeah, I should probably get on that." Vi responds and reached down and hauled Devaki to his feet, applying a growing pressure to his shoulder.

"So, who was gonna buy that stolen hextech?"

Devaki winced in pain, but didn't answer.

"Come on, you're tougher than that," said Vi, releasing his bruised shoulder. "You want to see what happens to a face when I don't pull my punches?"

"U-Ummm…" Devaki stuttered.

"Ever seen a pancake? That'll be your face but _EVEN _flatter if you let her do it. Show him, Vi." Vi's hype man tells Devaki, which only made the thief sweat profusely and tremble.

"No!" cried Devaki.

Vi then pulls him up higher and demands, "Then tell us what we want to know."

"I can't."

Vi tapped a finger on her chin, as if weighing whether to punch him again. She smiled, the expression worrying Devaki more than the thought of her fists.

"A little fun fact for you. My friend over there can transform into all kinds of monsters. And he has a few that's pretty scary."

"What?" said Devaki, spluttering in pain and indignation, not believing Vi's words. "That's a lie!"

"Show him, Muffin." Vi commands while keeping up her smirk.

"Muffin" shrugs and smiles as well before reaching for his strange watch. From Devaki's point of view, "Muffin" is suddenly engulfed in a bright flash of green light. All of a sudden, what he sees is so horrifying that, he is prompted to scream in terror and attempt to break free from Vi's hold so he could get away. Unfortunately, Vi keeps her grasp on him very tight while whatever monster "Muffin" had become is just behind her, with strange, black and white striped tentacles coming in to grab Devaki by his legs, arms and neck.

"Oof. He went for the freaky one." said Vi without even turning her back to face her companion, as if she already knows what he turned into out of memory.

"I'll talk! I'll talk! Make him stop!" protested Devaki as he wriggled and writhed while the tentacles went for him.

"Good boy," said Vi, snapping the fingers of her free gauntlet, signalling her friend to stop and retract the tentacles before a bright flash of emerald light fills the cell again and "Muffin", now back in his human form, joins Vi by her side. "Tell me what we want to know. I'll make sure it gets about you resisted arrest. Even give you a black eye so it looks like I beat it out of ya."

Devaki's shoulders slumped, knowing he had no defiance left in him.

"Fine, I'll... tell you... what you want to know..." The thief spoke in the middle of his deep breathing, having just witnessed something as terrifying as the Void, nevermind Vi's powerful hold on him.

"Excellent," said Vi, "Now we're getting somewhere." She and "Muffin" then bump the back of their fists as a small celebration of their successful united method of interrogation.

* * *

_5 years later..._

Fog swirls around the city of Bilgewater as the creaking of wooden planks and the sound of footsteps on them echo through the entire area. For years, not many foreigners come here voluntarily unless they're desperate and seeking to buy anything and everything under the sun through all the illegal trades that have happened here. To many, all this place is murky waters, blood soaked sailors, gangs as it's only form of governance and sea monsters.

But to the people that actually live, it's all they know, and it's all what their life depends on.

However, what they didn't expect this very day was a strange visitor would come and liven things up.

In a run down bar, several dirty and strange characters gather around over cheap booze, random bar fights and rigged gambling. Men and women of types are here. Dirty but muscular men that have worked in the docks and hunted beasts, unkempt beauty for women, or the complete opposite, with fat men consumed by their own greed and lost hope to take care of themselves, or women who eat away all their feelings and express themselves through sarcasm to hide the tears. All in all, this establishment is full of unsavory folk, save perhaps one or two of them. One, being the owner of the bar, who's rotund but not to an extreme, and has somehow kept himself and his own counter clean from spilled alcohol, blood, knocked off teeth and bruises.

The other person that's as clean, if not cleaner, is a strange woman with elegant red hair and dark green eyes. Her top could barely conceal her own breasts as it exposes much of her cleavage while it leaves her midriff just as exposed. She has white cuffs on her arms extending up to her wrists and navy blue pants with small corsets on each side. In addition to this, she has a pirate captain's hat and boots in the same color as her pants.

The woman tosses a golden coin up into the air and catching it repeatedly, as if waiting for something while she's surrounded by people that look like they're waiting for the same thing. With their outfits being just as pirate themed as hers, one can assume they're a crew together with this redheaded beauty.

"Hey boss. Is that Ionian really going to be here?" One of them, male, with a prosthetic left arm and a rifle on his back, says to the woman, confirming their association.

The woman sighs, catching her golden coin containing the symbol of a tentacle filled kraken, and tips her hat lower to cover her face in annoyance. "He better be. Or else we just wasted our time here." She replies, her lips quivering in annoyance as while gripping her golden kraken coin in anger.

"We kept our end of the bargain. He needs to pay up or he's getting filled with lead and steel!" Another one of their crew, a very young girl with so many knives on her belt while she holds one in her hand, says almost enthusiastically to the point of blushing, that she may look like a sadistic psychopath. "Right, Fortune?"

The woman, addressed as their miss Fortune, lightly pats the girl's left cheek with her hand to calm her down, before Fortune tells her, "If we get the chance to, you'll be the first to do so."

The young girl giggles in glee at the thought of it while the rest of the crew remain composed on their tables and seats. Miss Fortune herself finally puts away her coin back to her pocket while she waits for whomever they have a deal with until...

**SLAM!**

The door to the bar opens and slams into the walls on either side. With the outside now visible, the patrons of the establishment can see the man responsible for this attention stealing entrance. His silhouette is highlighted by the pouring rain outside the building, alongside the occasional lightning that emphasizes his own shadow.

The people in the bar stare at his intimidating shadow that resembles a black beast underneath a hood as he suddenly sprouts giant wings...

...until he enters the bar and closes the door. The dim light provided by the torches inside the bar finally shows who he is.

A simple, young adult male with a hooded cloak around him while what seems to be a gigantic blue eagle donning armor of sorts resting on his left shoulder. The man pulls down his hood and reveals himself to be a brown haired, green eyed young man.

"Sorry about that. I didn't expect the doors to be so light. Must've pushed too hard." The young man says while the eagle perched on him wriggles and shakes to get rid of the rain water it got soaked on. "Don't worry about Valor here. He won't hurt anyone... Unless you provoke him."

Valor, the majestic armored eagle, makes a small screech to respond in accordance with it's master.

The arrival of this young man caught the attention of everyone inside, including Miss Fortune and her crew. They eye him properly as he heads towards the counter to talk to the bartender. "Is that him, boss?" Another one of the crew, this time, a man with an eyepatch on his left eye and a scar on his right, with three claws on each of his gauntlets over his arms, asks her.

"No. I talked to an old man about our contract. But this guy... Never seen him before." Miss Fortune tells them. This caught all their curiosity. There's a possibility that this man is a naive newcomer from a foreign land, and it could get entertaining real fast. "Just in case, get ready for a brawl." She adds, a smile forming on her face. Maybe for now, she can distract herself from her initial annoyance and find herself enjoying the outsider's incoming shenanigans.

"What's your cheapest drink here?" The young man asks as he takes a seat at the counter while the bartender wipes and cleans one of his mugs.

"Buhru Salt Juice. Costs one silver serpent." The bartender responds as he brings out a metallic but rusty bottle from underneath his cupboards and pours some of it's contents into the mug he was just cleaning before sliding it over to his new customer.

The young man takes a good look at his new drink and what he sees is... interesting, to say the least. Inside the mug is a strange, almost jelly-like dark purple liquid, bubbling continuously like it was swamp water. However, when he smells it, it has the smell of freshly ripened strawberries mixed with sweet mangoes.

All the other patrons in the bar smirk and smile, excited to see this foreigner complain at the drink's putrid appearance but elegant smell. Anyone who wants to save money by buying this affordable drink, but doesn't know what it is, will ask themselves: is it actually as good as it smells and it just _looks _horrible? Or is the smell just a way to lull people into a false sense of assurance? Either way, everyone loves it when an outsider immediately quits without even trying it.

Including Fortune and her crew, a smile forming on their faces, as they wait for him to back out.

But as if to defy every deity known in Runeterra, the young man forms a smirk on his own face, gives the mug a menacing glare, holds onto it's handle tight...

...and chugs it all down into his throat, gulping the entire content of the mug in a few seconds.

Aside from the bartender, who chuckles to himself and gives the man an almost proud smile, everyone else, even the supposedly unfettered Miss Fortune, could only open their mouth agape in surprise as he slams the mug back down on the counter and takes out 5 silver coins, containing symbols resembling a serpent wrapped around a cutlass. "I'll take the entire bottle!" The young man responds, his smug leer still on his face as his pet eagle, Valor, screeches in victory.

"Hahaha! Not bad, boyo!" The bartender tells him and gives the gutsy challenger the entire bottle. "What's your name?"

"Benjamin Tennyson, at your service. Call me Ben for short." The unwavering boy, who refers to himself as Ben, responds as he takes the bottle and takes another gulp of it. Once he's sure he halves the entire liquid, he slams the bottle down as well and wipes away some of it dripping from his lips before taking a sigh of relief.

"Hah! Well, Ben, you earned my respect. Some of these folks here don't take kindly to outsiders. They think they're all small fish in a pond filled with alligators. Well played on showing us what you're made of." The bartender replies. "I don't like how they think, so I really hoped you'd change things in me establishment."

"Yeah well, I didn't come just for this. I need some directions for something." Ben says back while everyone else in the bar has lost their mood and went back to doing what they're doing, a bit irrated that, in an incredibly rare chance, a foreigner had guts this time.

Everyone felt this way... except Miss Fortune, who lost her astonished expression and gains a curious gaze at Ben instead. She lost her perspective on him the moment he drank the Buhru Salt Juice, which is what's considered as the worst drink in this establishment for being extremely bitter, salt and sour at the same time and cannot even get you drunk enough to ignore it's terrible taste, with the only saving grace being that it smells good. Now, if she were stupid, she'd think he's just another Bilgewater resident, but Fortune is anything but.

She keeps her eyes on him to see more of how he acts and get a read on what kind of person Ben is.

"What directions do you need, boyo?" The bartender asks Ben and grand Ben's mug and places it on a nearby sink so he can wash it with the faucet.

Ben takes a deep sigh as Valor steps off his shoulder to perch on the counter this time. "Do you know any ships heading for Ionia?"

His words caught everyone's attention again. One of them even spit out what they were drinking in sheer shock. The bartender, who, up to this point, really liked Ben, lost his smile and stopped his faucet from pouring water into Ben's mug. "The hell is your business in Ionia?"

"Whoa, what's with the sudden vitriol?" Ben asks, pulling back his cloak a small bit so he can bring out his hands.

Miss Fortune is listening closely as well as observing him more and more. When Ben brought out his hands, she noticed that underneath the cloak, he has brown sleeves and is wearing green gloves with black fingers. However, she noticed something on his left sleeve. From what she could see from her spot, it look circular in shape, but in the center is a symbol of sorts. She can only make of half of it, but it looks a triangular shape of sorts over a green background. Assuming it's symmetrical, it may have another triangular shape parallel to the other, which would make the symbol look like an hourglass.

"Interesting... A symbol I'm not familiar with..." Miss Fortune whispered to herself as she crosses her arms and keeps her sights on Ben.

"Ionian folks are high and mighty pieces of scuttle crab crap and we don't take kindly to smug dogs like them around here." The bartender responds, and as if on cue, nearly every single patron in the bar held onto whatever weapon they have. Some had sabers and swords, sheathed on their belts. Some had guns, with pistols in holsters or rifles on their backs. Some had unorthodox ones, like spears, tridents and harpoons.

Ben, with a sigh of annoyance, massages his temple before responding, "I'm not Ionian, if that's what you're thinking. I'm headed there because someone owes me and I need to collect from them. That still bad for you?"

His words caught more of Fortune's attention. A stranger with beef against an Ionian? Very interesting. Not to mention, it coincides with her and her crew's current job. Maybe she can use this to her advantage. The beautiful bounty hunter smirks, stands up and struts towards Ben at the counter.

"I find that hard to believe, boyo..." The bartender responds and takes out a clever and threateningly brings it down and lodges it an inch away from Ben's hand. "You better start explaining before I lose any respect I just had for you."

"Leave him alone, Bauman. The kid's just asking for directions." Miss Fortune defuses the situation, approaching the counter with a small sway to her step before sitting on the counter itself in an almost seductive manner, crossing her legs with her back turned against Bauman the bartender. "Does it really matter what he's doing afterwards? The boy paid you for booze. Let him have a ship. Besides, he could be telling the truth. He might kick an Ionian's ass for you giving him what he wanted."

"Oh... S-Sorry, Fortune. I was just..." Bauman wanted to say, but Miss Fortune turns around and puts a finger on his old lips in a sensual way. Ben, a bit confused at Miss Fortune's antics, chooses to just let it play out and take another sip from his Buhru Salt Juice bottle while he watches her do her thing.

With a charming smile, Miss Fortune tells Bauman in an alluring tone, "Shhhh. It's okay. You were just concerned for everyone here. That's understandable. Let me handle him, okay?"

"Y-Yes... Miss Fortune." Bauman conceded, making the dominant woman smile and get off the counter before facing Ben.

"Ben, was it? Got some business in the First Lands?" The bounty hunter leader asks the foreigner.

Ben nods, still drinking the rest of his bottle before finishing it, placing the bottle down. A trickle of the purple liquid is still on his lips, running down his chin, so he wipes it away with the back of his gloved, left hand.

The way he moved his left hand caused his sleeve to drop a bit, which confirmed what Miss Fortune was thinking. Ben is wearing a strange relic of sorts as a watch, with the symbol being an hourglass symbol, like she suspected.

"Yeah. You're Fortune, right? I mean, that's what he called you." Ben replies while pointing at Bauman with his thumb before Valor flies over the young man and perches back on his shoulder.

"Let's talk." Fortune offers him before snapping her fingers towards her crew, who all salute and head outside of the bar ahead of the two.

* * *

The rain is still pouring as the two travel through the wooden plank-filled port of Bilgewater. Miss Fortune is ignoring the water pouring over her as the raindrops bounce of her captain's hat. Ben himself put back his hood and wrapped his cloak around him while Valor remains on his shoulder, ignoring the rain as well.

"Mind telling me what's this about, Miss Fortune?" Ben asks as he keeps up with Fortune's steps, heading for a different part of the port.

"You're in Slaughter Docks, Benjamin. Worst place in Bilgewater that's also our best way of income around these parts. You're not getting any help in Bauman's bar or anywhere near there, including the entire dock itself." Fortune explained and leads the young man somewhere else by taking a left, just past a hunting boat.

The moment Ben follows her and takes the same turn as her, he is surprised by what the bounty hunter had lead him to.

A massive pirate ship. Decorated with beautiful gold and ivory paint, with a beautiful varnish golden brown on certain areas, with the ship's figurehead resembling that of a strange woman with tentacles for a beard coming from beneath her nose and on her chin, while she holds onto the bowsprit of the ship like it was a spear above her head.

The ship was magnificent to behold, and that's not even getting into the sight of the crew working together to bring up the mast and operate it as Fortune climbs on the rope ladder leading to the deck.

"Don't just stand there and stare at my big, beautiful ship. You wanted a ride to Ionia, didn't you?" Miss Fortune shouts to him through the loud drops of rain around them before lightning flashes and thunder raced.

Ben smiles and takes a small chuckle as he pets Valor on his shoulder. "We're going to go see them again, Valor." He happily tells his companion, who nuzzles his head and beak towards Ben's cheek as a response. The young man then runs for the ship as Fortune gives a smirk to herself and continues climbing.

Upon climbing the rope ladder, however, Ben and Valor are greeted by a sight they really wished they didn't see.

Fortune and her entire crew, gathered together and aiming their weapons at Ben. Ben's smile drops to a scowl while each and every single one of the Fortune crew is grinning from ear to ear, from Fortune's bruiser that's as large as a rhinoceros and built like a tank, to the girl from earlier, aiming all her knives at Ben's neck while she holds one knife by her teeth and breathing heavily like an animal in heat.

"Let's get something straight here, punk. We don't offer free rides to just anyone. You will pay us, one way or another. Our ship isn't a pleasure cruise. It's a vessel for pirate hunters like us, and we recently got a job from an Ionian geezer but he hasn't shown up in a while. You're on your way to Ionia so I thought we can pick up and see what we can do with you, tough guy." Fortune tells him before stepping on his left hand holding onto the rope ladder.

Despite the pain and massive amounts of pressure the crew leader is placing on his hand, Ben keeps his scowl while Valor screeches in anger.

"I'll take your silence as you willing to listen, so I'll keep this brief. You're a foreigner. Don't care where you're from, but here in Bilgewater, we look out for each other. You're not from here so we don't care about you, but you're headed for Ionia and we need to see someone from there too. So if you want to reach Ionia alive and stay that way when we part ways, you play along with us and don't do anything that upsets anyone in the crew. Especially Little Knives over here." Miss Fortune continued and points at the girl with the knives.

Without even a warning, Little Knives moves closer to Ben, takes out the knife in her mouth and suddenly cuts Ben's cheek, startling him as blood drips from his small wound. And to shock him more, Knives licks the blood off his cheek and pulls Ben close by his collar. "Your blood is so sweet! Everyone else was so bitter! I want to see more of it!" Knives shamelessly tells Ben without a care for personal space and keeps her face near his. "Can I kill him now, Fortune?!" She adds with a big grin on his face and her knife an inch away from his throat. "I want to cut apart his pretty face and sleep with his body every night!"

"Geez, Knives! Calm down!" One of them, the other young man with a rifle from the bar earlier, shouts to the murder happy girl while massaging his forehead.

"Yeah. I mean we can just shoot him and get it over with. The blood is just gonna stain the entire deck. And I'm NOT cleaning the deck again after the last job!" Another, a girl about Fortune's age, wielding a harpoon and a trident on her back, tells her crazy companion.

The big, giant muscular man chuckles however, and crosses his humongous arms, and tells his fellow crewmates, "It will not be as much. He is a tiny man after all."

"Calm down. All of you. We still need him. But if he messes up and hurts anyone here... Feel free to fillet him, Knives." Fortune tells them, which makes Knives giggle and lick Ben's blood off again before kissing him on the cheek. It did nothing but annoy Ben as she backs away on all fours as he faces Fortune again, still ignoring the pain her foot is putting on his left hand. "So, here's the deal, Tennyson. We take you to Ionia but in exchange, you give us something we ask for."

"What do you want?" Ben responds with a dry tone. Whatever enthusiasm or happiness he had prior to this had all vanished and he gives the entire crew a glare. But from the way he's looking at them, it was as if this isn't his first time to be taken advantage of like this.

"Straight to the point. I like it. Since you asked, I have been looking at you for a while now and I have to say... I like what I see~" Fortune spoke in her lustful voice as she kneels down and caresses Ben's cheek... before reaching for his left wrist, taking her foot off his hand and lifting his arm up to make his sleeve drop to reveal his watch-like relic. "What is this?" Fortune demands from the young man. "Looks expensive, from my point of view. Keeping a close eye on it ever since bought that Buhru Salt Juice from Baumann."

This time, however, Ben finally regains his jovial attitude and suddenly smiles back at Fortune as he reaches for this strange relic of sorts. "It's hard to explain. How about I show you?" He suddenly tells her before he touches the hourglass symbol on his watch, whichcauses the relic to bring out a dial of sorts from it's casing and the silhouette of a strange, humanoid being pops out as a hologram.

Fortune and her crew wanted to ask what the hell did he just do, but they immediately got their answer when Ben slams down the dial and gets engulfed in bright, general light as Valor steps off his owner and fly off Ben. This sudden flash of light blinds most of the crew, causing them to back away and forces Fortune to let go of Ben's hand.

Lightning flashes and the rain started to slow down and drop lesser and lesser as the crew sees the emerald light engulfing Ben as it rises from the ladder and gets on the deck.

When the light dies down, what the crew sees surprised them to the point of sending their mouths agape.

In Ben's place is taller, humanoid being made entirely of rocks encompassed by magma and hot lava. His feet have a strange slight oval-like design with only two toes and one back toe, while his fingers have been reduced from 10 to 8, losing one finger on each hand. The most distinguishable part of him, however, was that his strange, almost alien-like head, is also burning with a bright flame that makes it look like he has an infernal mane.

Lastly, he contains a similar hourglass symbol from his watch earlier on his chest.

With the weak rain still pouring, each water droplet turns into small pockets of steam each them they strike this flaming being's literally hot body.

Silence was next to happen as the burning beast stares down at them while Valor had taken a new spot on some of the ropes holding the mast, perching on it to watch what will happen.

"What... What the hell are you?" Miss Fortune demands from this fiery beast.

"Well, just for you baby, call me Heatblast." Ben, or rather, Heatblast, tells Fortune before he suddenly starts spinning in place, creating a whirlwind of flame that forces the crew to back away, but they were unprepared when the tornado started throwing out fireballs. The crew is forced to dodge and weave away from each attack, as each fireball misses, flying over the ship and ending up in the water.

The moment Heatblast stops, each crew member began charging towards him, with Knives moving in first. However, Heatblast simply grabs her by her hair and pulls her up like a brat. When Little Knives tries to break free by attacking Heatblast with her knife, it simply shatters on impact with his rocky body. She tries it over and over again but each knife keep breaking.

Heatblast sighs at the sight of the young delinquent try and fail multiple times, however, he sees the rest of the crew coming at him with spears, harpoons and guns. In a quick maneuver none of them saw coming, Heatblast brings Knives forward and uses her as a shield, which actually causes all of them to halt in their tracks and lower their weapons.

"Read you guys like a book. You all looked close, like a family. The way you looked at each other, talked to one another. Plus, your boss literally said that you all look out for each other. So if I use Knives as a human shield, you won't go through your attacks." Heatblast spoke in a tone that demanded attention, silencing everyone, including Fortune herself.

The rifle toting boy grit his teeth and gripped hard on his gun as he attempts to approach the fiery being holding his companion, as he says, "You scumbag, piece of-"

He stops his endeavor, however, when Fortune raised her hand and pushes him back, all while keeping her glade towards Heatblast. With a small nod, she gestures him to continue, to which the flaming man adds "I wasn't actually going to let you hurt her if you _did _ignore Knives and shoot through her just to get to me. But I just knew you guys wouldn't that. If you had defied my expectations, I would have been very angry that you would hurt your own comrade all so you could hurt an enemy. But you didn't and earned some of my respect in that regard."

"What would you know about respect, little man?" The bulky bruiser from earlier comments, but Heatblast raises a finger with the hand he's not using to hold Knives up.

"More than you imagine, big guy. I respect Miss Fortune here enough because she's just looking out for you guys, even _if _that meant exploiting and taking advantage of an outsider... But I'm not just some outsider. I've seen a lot of action that can match anything you guys may have done." Heatblast tells them, lowering his other hand before finally letting go of Knives. The girl wanted to attack the shapeshifter right then and there for making an embarrassment of her, but she takes a look at Fortune and it earned her a shake from her head, telling her otherwise. The psychopathic youngster grumpily grumbles and backs away, joining the rifle boy's side while Heatblast continues. "As evidenced by what I've been doing, I'm not naive. I've been able to read you guys in just a few seconds while I keep surprising all of you for past couple of minutes, from the bar until here. Granted, I don't know what trick you guys have, but the moment I see them, I'll eventually overcome them. I got a lot more up my literal sleeve that I'll eventually find a solution to whatever problem you give me. So stop acting like you know me just as much as any other person you've all taken advantage of. I'm NOTHING like them."

This silenced them all. And as if the gods themselves agree with him, the rain stopped pouring altogether and thunder and lightning had vanished, almost like nature is dramatically helping him set the mood.

It was Miss Fortune's turn to scowl as she faced Heatblast to ask him, "What do _YOU _want?!"

"The only reasons I didn't burn your entire ship right now is because I still need something to get me across the seas and to Ionia... and also because I'm not so cruel that I'd burn all your progress and your only source of income, like you said." Heatblast tells them, crossing his arms.

The crew looks around that despite his first and only attack against them, not a single fireball hit any part of the ship. He wasn't wildly flailing hid attacks earlier. There we just a show of force and a taste of what he can do to them at any point if he tried taking them on seriously. The fireballs he threw end up last the ship and into the waters to their side, harmlessly hitting literally nothing but air. The only thing scorched is the floor beneath his feet when he spun around earlier and made a small tornado of flame.

All of these did not escape Fortune's notice either, so internally, she gave him credit for that, but she's still not convinced unless he tells her and her crew the point.

"Get to the point!" Knives yelled at Heatblast, putting into words what her captain was thinking.

"Fine. Here's the new deal. Get me to Ionia and I'll give you whatever money I have now. You're never taking off the Omni- I mean... My relic... off of my wrist. I've tried. Several times." Heatblast tells them.

A different member of the crew, who seems to be a tall man wearing knuckle dusters and has a scar over his lips, suddenly comments, "Not if we cut off your wrist!"

"With what? Scissors? Then you'll stomp me out with a big boot once you've taken it? Yeah, no. Not happening either. Someone from Noxus tried to cut off my arm with a giant axe and this relic released a charge so powerful, it cratered the execution room and blew him and everyone else surrounding me off of me. And if they can't remove it, what chance do you guys have?!" Heatblast replies to him. The knuckle duster wielding hunter wanted to retort, but he had lost his words, and did not know what to say, who he just shut himself up. "That's my final offer. I don't want to have to destroy this ship just to keep proving my point that you don't want to mess with me. Because you don't. You don't like me, but I almost liked you all until this crap you're pulling on me. You're not in charge of me but I'm not charge of any of you either. But we all just want to go to Ionia for two different reason, but still the same place. So instead of making enemies with each other, how about we all suck it up for one singular trip, you'll be a couple of holds richer, and then we never see each other again. Deal?"

Heatblast held out his hand towards Miss Fortune for a handshake, but all he receives from her is a scowl, her hand slapping away his own and her turning her back on him.

"...Just this once. If we ever see you again after all this... You'll be sleeping with the fishes." She responds in kind instead as she looks at him from behind before turning away and heading for her quarters, all while the rest of the crew look back and forth towards their captain and Heatblast.

"Good enough." escaped from the mouth of Heatblast before he walks towards the front of the boat while Valor flies towards him and perches on the railing in front of the flaming man.

The crew members then all begin to walk away and head for their respective sections of the ship to sail it properly. Some members where headed for the same area so they began speaking amongst themselves.

"Nobody has frustrated boss like this in a long time."

"Yeah. Last one that did was Gangplank, and this foreigner is reaching her angriest levels of stress."

"I think he's bluffing. There's no way someone like him can handle us!"

"There's no way for us to know if we can handle him either!"

Each word they spoke were all heard by both Heatblast and Fortune, but neither one cared. Something is on their minds right now, and it's each other. Heatblast really just wanted to get to Ionia. He was even willing to pay them with everything he had in his person, but Fortune just had to make it difficult. And Fortune herself just didn't trust Ben at all, so she was being cautious and wanted to make sure to show him she's in charge, but not only did he talk back, he had the power to back it up.

With this peculiar stalemate they put themselves into, both parties have no choice but to work with teeth clenched and tolerate each other until they can finally get rid of each other once they reach Ionia.

Once everyone has reached their stations, the girl with the harpoon earlier man's the ship's steering wheel while some of the crew changes the direction of the mast while pulling down the sail so they can turn vessel around. Eventually, they turn around and sail into the open seas.

While the crew commandeers the ship, Heatblast takes a deep sigh and taps symbol on his chest and it flashes another bright, emerald light, turning himself back into human form. He then starts petting Valor on his head, which the giant eagle takes in delight before shaking his head to dry himself, soaking Ben's face in the process. But the shapeshift didn't mind and laughs it off before wiping away the trickles of rain from his face and continues petting Valor.

"You're a good boy, Valor. I don't know what I'd have done if you weren't there for me." Ben tells his companion. The blue eagle responds by getting off the railing to perch back on his shoulder and nuzzle his against Ben's head, causing the young man to smile. "Although, I feel like traveling with me has softened you up."

Taking this more of an insult, the proud bird does not take it in stride and spreads his wings wide and open before doing a proper and loud screech, as if to tell Ben that he's still a warrior. This display of pride from the eagle made Ben chuckle heartily and smiles at his feathered friend. "Alright, alright. I guess you haven't lost your touch. But for now, don't hurt anyone here... Unless they start the fight, then feel free to attack. But no gouging out eyes. Okay?"

Ben's words sunk in for the bird, but Valor tilted his head when Ben told him to not go for the eyes of his enemies, which causes his master to sigh and adds, "Look, I know that's what you're used to, but you can't gouge out people's eyes. That's immoral. I know it's what Qu-" He suddenly stopped when he was about to mention someone and looks down at the floor before leaning on the railings of the ship. "... I know it's what she taught you, but you don't have to keep doing it. Especially since..."

Once again, he stopped. He couldn't even bare to look at Valor out of shame for some reason. He kept his gaze elsewhere while the bird stayed perched on him. But while he does so, Valor himself seems a bit more concerned for Ben as he moves closer to his face and tries to peck it lightly.

"... I'm fine, Valor. We should rest while we can... It's gonna be a long trip." Ben tells his fowl companion, finally looking back at him to pat him on the head.

But this was cut short when...

"Captain! Look!"

Fortune comes running out of her cabin as she takes out two hand cannons from her holsters and runs at the back of the ship. Ben sees that everyone is gathering there, so his curiosity has been peaked, making him run towards the gathering crew.

Upon arriving at the quarter deck, Ben, as well as the rest of the crew are extremely surprised at what they see.

A colossal, 100 foot sea monster angrily glaring at them. It is a giant, bipedal creature with four webbed legs and a tail with a fin. It has two tentacles coming out of her mouth which act like two extra arms, blue eyes, golden teeth and six gills on it's neck. The upper part of it's body is dark cyan, while the lower part is olive.

"Krakken..." Fortune whispers to herself as she, her crew, Ben and Valor stare at it in utter surprise. "Battle stations!"

"Wait, you can't fight it with artillery! Krakkens are-" Ben tries to warn her, but Fortune holsters the hand cannon on her right hand and grabs Ben's collar and pulls him close.

With a glare on her face as her crew run and prepare for a fight in the background, Fortune tells Ben with a rage fueled tone, "Don't lecture me on how to fight sea monsters, punk! I live in Bilgewater, where we hunt these things! I know damn well that that thing is fast and agile. I know how to deal with it and I know how to kill it! So either hide in the brig, or you help us fight that thing, since you apparently know how to deal with one too!"

"Can you stop yelling at me for once and cooperate with me? I've done nothing to warrant all this hate from you. This only happened because you started taking advantage of me being a foreigner!" Ben pointed out, just as the krakken lets loose a bellowing roar and dives into the ocean.

"You don't know who I am nor do you know what I've been through. If you did, you'd know why I don't trust people like you!" Fortune fired back.

"You're right! I don't! But if all you do is push people away, then you're making more enemies than friends. You'll be endangering the lives of your crew more if you keep doing that. So maybe, even just this once, trust someone. Trust me. Let me help you. I'm not your enemy here. Tell me a plan like you do with your crew." Ben responds, the look on his face turning from anger to concern.

Ben and Fortune enter another staring contest right into each other's eyes. The longer they do so, the more they start to see each other's reflection on each other's eyes. Ben can tell that Fortune had the eyes of someone who had lost a lot and didn't want it to happen again, even if it meant looking like a monster to everyone else. And to Fortune, Ben's eyes are almost the same. But what he does do after loss is something she never saw in her own: hope. She doesn't know him, but a good look and she could tell he lost just as much but for some reason, he still managed to cling onto what little light he could find while surrounded by darkness that wanted him to give in, unlike her, who did and became what she is today.

With a sigh of acceptance, Fortune lets go of Ben's collar and takes out her hand cannon again. "Don't make me regret this." She tells him before running for the upper deck, to which Ben follows her to.

"You won't." Ben replies and joins her side at the steering wheel while the rest of the crew prepare the ship for a sea monster battle. Some of them had already entered the lower deck to man the cannons on each side.

"What's the plan, captain?" The harpoon lady on the wheel asks her boss, who grabs a nearby telescope lying on the top of an empty barrel.

Looking through the spyglass, Fortune sees that the Krakken, for some reason, swam ahead of them, it's fin sticking out of the water. It then took a very sharp turn and is heading straight for them like a speeding torpedo. "Turn the ship to the left as hard as you can the moment it becomes a couple of feet away from us and I'll have the cannons fire once we turn to our side. Keep the ship steady until then, Durga."

Durga, the one in charge of the wheel, salutes Fortune and says, "Aye aye, captain!"

"Ben, turn into that flaming form of yours and shoot as much flame into the water as you can the moment we shoot it with enough cannonballs and create a wall of steam for us as cover." Fortune orders her new acquaintance.

"Sure. I can do that." Ben smirks and heads back down the stairs while Valor followed him.

"Are you sure it's okay to trust him?" Durga asks Fortune, who watches Ben run ahead to the front deck and stand just behind the boat's bowsprit, with Valor flying circles above him as he touches his relic and he starts spinning the dial.

"… For now, at least. Just get ready to spin that wheel harder than you ever did before." Fortune replies.

Everyone on board prepares for the speeding Krakken as it tears through the waters in speeds no sea monster had done before. Durga keeps her sights on it as it nears them while Ben prepares the hologram of Heatblast hovering above the dial. "Go long, Valor. I got this." Ben tells his feathery companion and the might eagle screeches and flies up to the mast.

Each crew member had sweat dripping from their face down to their chins and even on the tip of their noses. Each unit of distance the beast takes to reach them is every second each crew member holds their weapon tighter and tighter. This is not their first sea monster to fight and they swear to Fortune, this won't be their last either. While this is the fastest they've ever seen, it hardly matters to any of them.

Today, it's just another quota filled. And while this doesn't stop them from still being scared of the possibility of death either, their pride as Bilgewater hunters far outweigh their fears.

So when the Krakken was finally close enough, Durga spun the ship around and had the right side of the vessel face the beast, with the cannons on the right all aiming at it.

"FIRE!" Fortune yelled with vigor and command as the right side cannons unload all their ammunition into the beast, all while Ben slams down the dial, turns into Heatblast once again, and heads for the side to blast the water with large wave of hot flames, creating enough steam to engulf and hide the boat.

Disoriented by the amount of cannon fire it took, the Krakken was forced to rise from the depths and shake it's head, only to be greeted by the fog of steam around it, covering every direction and effectively making the monster blind.

Without a clue as to where the ship may be now, it didn't even have enough time to retreat back underwater as several roped harpoons and spears flew from in front of it and lodged into it's skin.

It turns out, the ship never changed directions once the steam had formed, and the crew began their attempts to capture it by using their harpoons to keep it in place.

The beast, angered by these humans trying to kill it, roars and bellows so loud, that it's breath was strong enough to clear the fog of war and regain it's vision on the enemy.

"Keep firing!" Fortune tells her crew, and so they did, with the cannon crew below deck reloading and firing again while the rest took out their guns and shot at the beast.

And thinking this is the best time to follow up, Heatblast gathers heat into his hands and cups them together, gathering more and more till he eventually couldn't contain it anymore and he lifts up his hands, revealing the heat he had gathered had become a gigantic fireball that's the size of the Krakken's head.

With one mean swing, Heatblast then tosses the colossal ball of flames at the beast. With it's movements restrained due to the roped harpoons embedded onto it's body, it could not dodge the burning being's attack as the fireball explodes on impact of it's face, creating a massive explosion that could be seen from miles.

Dust, steam and smoke all mix into the air as each pirate hunter on the deck tense up, the beast they've all caught had stopped moving. Heatblast, and especially Fortune, keep their attention towards the wall of gassy substance between them and the Krakken.

But despite everything in their power to keep themselves composed and believe they've won, they're all still shocked when the monster makes an ear piercing roar that blew away all the steam to show that while it suffered a couple of burns, bruises and bleeding wounds, it's still very much alive.

The Krakken then lifts it's arms from the dark waters and grabs all the steel ropes tied to each harpoon and lifts all of them up, pulling in the crew members holding onto the guns that fired each harpoon.

In a quick motion, Heatblast decides to save them from a terrible fate by waving his fiery fist in an arc, creating a flaming wave that was precise, sharp and hot enough to cute the steel ropes, severing them and preventing the crew members from getting tossed out of the ship.

This act did not escape Fortune's notice. He just saved some of her crew without anyone, not even her, telling him to. Maybe...

No. Not enough. For all she knows, he might just be putting up an act.

Still in denial, she jumps off the upper deck and runs towards the side of the boat to approach the Krakken. With hand cannons out, she fires a volley of powerful shells that all explode on contact with the sea monster's body, causing it to back up from the ship out of instinct to defend itself. "Fire all our cannons! Engage!"

By their captain's orders, the crew of Miss Fortune all fire their cannons at the Krakken once more. Each cannonball exploded on impact and burned through the beast's flesh. Unfortunately for the monster hunters, the beast is free from the harpoons of it's hunters and it dives back into the water.

"Damn Krakken! Where did it even come from?! Sea monsters don't come out here near the port!" Fortune angrily spoke out her mind, aiming her guns at the water while scanning the depths for the sea monster, with Heatblast joining her.

"I thought you knew you about your own city?" said Heatblast, but his comment went unnoticed when the entire ship rocked hard and wobbled until the krakken emerged from the dark waters once again, this time, on the opposite side of the boat as it suddenly clung onto the mast and step one of it's front limbs at the very deck as it scanned the vessel.

Several of the crew members began attacking the beast any weapon they could find onboard in an attempt to save their ship. Fortune herself twirls her hand cannons around her fingers and took aim at the krakken. The angry captain then grit her teeth and unleashed a volley of her ammunition into the beast.

Heatblast was going to help her and her crew, conjuring and charging up a large fireball, ready to throw it and hopes that the explosion that will happen will knock it off the ship. However, the longer he kept his attention on the krakken, the more he noticed how... odd the creature is acting.

It was scanning the ship, like it was looking for something. It stopped defending itself as well. The closest to doing so is simply roaring loud and powerful enough to release a force of wind from it's mouth to blow back it's attackers before going back to look around the ship again.

Something isn't right. If Fortune is right that these beasts don't come too close to shore, why did this one come all the way here? And why is simply looking around now?

Then something hit him. But he's unsure if it's the correct answer. He'll need to confirm first.

Heatblast, acquiring a sense of skepticism over the situation, disperses his fireball and shoots a straight beam of flames, but intentionally missed his attack and simply made a constant stream of fire over the krakken's eyes and nose to annoy it enough that it's finally forced to jump off the ship. It's tough hide can handle the punishment, but not it's eyesight and sense of smell.

As it dove through the water, creating a large splash of water in it's wake, Fortune turns around, a furious fire in her eyes, and marches angrily towards the flaming humanoid. "What the hell did you do?!" said the bounty hunting captain.

Heatblast then switches back to his human form and faces Fortune head on, a stern expression plastered on his face as he asks, "What did _YOU _do?"

"What?" was the response of Miss Fortune as Ben faces her, paying no mind to her anger.

Ben, keeping his serious look, continues, "That krakken was looking for something. Something on your ship. It got me thinking... What was the job you guys took from that Ionian geezer you mentioned?"

"What does that have anything to do with that beast?!" Fortune yelled at him.

"Just answer my question!" Ben demanded back at her, surprising her a bit and momentarily stopped her heart for a second.

Recovering from the minor shock, she scoffs at him and says, "All he told us was grab a couple of crates from a shipwreck and deliver it to him by meeting him at the port."

"Did you check what was inside the crates?" Ben added.

"I... We didn't bother..." Fortune admitted.

Ben, hearing this, immediately asks, "Where did you put them?"

"In the brig." said Fortune, which prompts the shapeshifter to place his left middle finger amd his thumb in his lips and whistles, calling forth Valor from the mast. Valor swoops down from the sky as Ben runs towards a the stairs leading to the brig. Ben then jumps and the powerful blue eagle picks him up by the back of his cloak.

Valor was strong enough to not just lift Ben, but also strong enough to keep flying and take Ben into the brig faster than being on foot. Once the majestic bird had taken his master downstairs, Ben hops off his talons and steps onto the wooden floors of the room underneath the deck. As he looks around and Valor perches back on his left shoulder, Fortune joins him from upstairs.

The crates were numerous. Had Ben been lazy, he would not have counted them all as a total of 16. Water seems to be seeping between the cracks of each crate and the stench coming from all them reeks, like rotten eggs mixed with blood...

_Wait..._

Something occurred to Ben. The Krakken was searching for something in the boat. And the crates...

In a hurry, Ben grabs a nearby unused harpoon and uses the blunt end of the weapon to poke through one of the crates and force it open, removing it's moss filled lid from it's top.

And much to his horror, his theory was confirmed.

The crate has a Krakken egg in it. Round, like a ball, but twice the size of Ben's own torso that he could practically hold it with both hands and his entire upper body and face would be covered. It's a sickly yellow color with brown veins. It looks less like a shelled egg and more like a fleshy membrane shaped into an orb. It's even pulsating.

This horrible realization was shown to Fortune as well, as she joins with Ben to see what she and her crew had brought upon themselves. Her rage towards Ben was shifted away in exchange for anger towards a completely different person. "That old man tricked us!"

"You mean you really didn't know what you guys were carrying?" Ben asks.

Fortune slams the back of her fist onto a nearby wooden wall of her own ship in a fit of rage as she grit her teeth. "He told us to go get these crates and he'll pick them up. He even paid us in advanced... Now I know... He wanted us to have these so that that thing could kill us!" Fortune responds to Ben.

"Well, don't worry! We just give back the eggs to her and —" Ben, in an attempt to reassure her, tells the captain, but she interrupts him by turning around and lifting him up by his collar.

"You don't get it, do you?!" Fortune cried. "Krakkens hold grudges! Even if we return that thing's eggs, it'll try to crush our ship and everyone aboard!"

"We don't know that. For all we know..."

Ben had no time to finish his sentence when the ship starts rumbling. Without a chance to even react on what's happening, Ben, Valor and Fortune are tossed away from one another as the floor beneath them explodes into splinters and debris, with a large amount of water erupting from below. The force and explosion of water was so great, the world flashed for Ben as he loses consciousness, everything fading to white while the last thing he hears are the screams of everybody aboard the ship...

_"No... Wait..."_

* * *

_"Ben?"_

_It was her voice again. Of course, I shouldn't be surprised, considering I've been here for a whole year now after that peace treaty between Demacia and Piltover. Still, waking up hearing her isn't such a bad way to get up in the morning._

_Opening my eyes, I found myself still lying on the wide open, grassy field of the outskirts of the Demacian town of Uwendale. The sweet and gentle gust of wind flowing on my face tempted me to relax more and sleep, but I can hear her calling out my name._

_"Ben. Are you dead? Do I have to kick you again?"_

_I wanted to reply that I'm getting up, but I just want to mess with her. So instead of saying that, what I instead replied with is, "5 more minutes..."_

_I even turned away from her, facing my right, as I remained lying down on the ground, the warm, soft soil acting as my mattress and the grass as my bed sheet. But I could tell that she could tell that I'm smiling, even if she can't see my face._

_To retort to my joke, however, she scoffs in an almost sardonic way and I felt a light kick on my back. Not enough to hurt but enough to jump me up, making me chuckle to myself and finally sit up from my position. "Alright! Alright! I'm up!"_

_The annoyed look on her face only made me snicker more but she eventually changed it to smug smirk while she sits down beside me. "Just for that, you're demonstrating for the girls tomorrow." She snided at me._

_She loves doing that as punishment for me whenever I annoy her. Demonstrating my embarrassing talents for the girls back in town in an attempt to humiliate me. She knows how bad I am with girls already, so I've basically become the town clown for the beautiful maidens and aspiring female soldiers, decreasing my chances with any of them further._

_But instead of complaining, I laugh at her and retorted back, "Fine then! I'll dance and sing while drunk again! Seeing those girls laugh will make my day." I've gotten so used to her shenanigans that it's basically become second nature._

_"Oh, you masochist. Some of the girls will definitely like that. I should start thinking of other punishments then... Like getting rid of your smoothie privileges." She answered, her smirk growing bigger, which made my smile drop and my eyes wide open._

_"No! Please! Anything but that!" was all I could tell her, pleading while I cling to her right arm. The world can take my life, but my smoothies are eternal! They're the greatest Ionian drink ever conceived in history!_

_"I'm kidding. I'm not that cruel." She teased me, flicking my nose before ruffling my hair, like I was a child. To be fair, she _is _older than me by 10 years, old enough to be my big sister... Even though I already have a sister in Caitlyn._

_With a sigh of both relief and annoyance, I simply went back to lying down and place my left arm over my forehead to rest as I look up at the afternoon sky. "Never joke like that! You'll give me a heart attack..."_

_She, herself, also went to lie down next to me, as she replies to me, "You're still too young to die. I'll never let that happen to you..."_

_"...Is that a promise?"_

_"Etched in steel."_

_"Then... I hope you'll be there with me to the bitter end."_

_A smile formed on our faces as we look at each other. Without another word, she reached for the back of my head, pulled me close and pressed our foreheads on against each other, the warmth we feel shared to both of us equally. We closed our eyes and shared a quiet minute together._

_"...Hey Quinn..."_

_"Yeah?"_

_"You, me and Valor... We're family... Right?"_

_"Always."_

* * *

Muffled noises awakened Ben as the cold waters of the sea splash on his face. His eyes opened slowly as he found himself hanging on to a wooden plank afloat the waters while several other pieces of wood drift away into open seas.

Once his vision had become less blurry and the water in his ears had dried off, he sees how bad the situation had finally become.

The end and front of the boat had been split apart, causing each side to start sinking. Several of the crewmembers are either still climbing each side of the ship, or at the open waters, hanging onto floating debris from their destroyed ship, whether it's planks, broken cannons or simply just truing their best to stay afloat on their own.

It is as Miss Fortune had feared. The Krakken tore apart their ship.

"Valor? Valor!" Ben called out and hears a screech from above. It reassured him to look up and see valor, safe and sound, as the Demacian eagle uses his talons to grab Ben by the back of jacket to lift him up and carry him into the air.

Gaining a better view up above, Ben surveys the situation. Counting each member one by one, he recognized most of the crew and sees that they're complete, including Fortune, sitting on a much wider plank of wood with her back resting against the stump of what was once the mast of the boat. However, he sees her clutching her right arm while blood trickled from where she held it, seeping through the thin space between the fingers of her left hand and down her very right arm itself.

The shapeshifting young man was going to command Valor to bring him to the captain until, at the corner of his sight, the backfin of the krakken creeps out of the water and is heading straight for all of them, broken, confused and scared. Perfect to take down with ease.

The most vulnerable right now, within his view, is Little Knives, who is still unconscious as she hung onto a wooden barrel. The Krakken closing in fast, Ben directs Valor, "Drop me and grab Knives!"

Valor did not hesitate to follow his partner's command, releasing his grip on Ben as he activates the dial on his watch once again. Valor then uses his better speed and natural flight to go in ahead of Ben, swooping down to grab Little Knives while Ben twists and turns the dial of his strange device, changing the silhouette icon on the plate.

As he scrolls fast, he finds what he's looking for and slams the dial with his right palm, covering him in bright green light once more.

The krakken, once it got closer to the crew, rose from the water fast, with it's hands and claws up, ready to strike these humans that took her eggs...

...until a powerful, heavy and spherical projectile strikes it on its head, stunning the beast and forcing it back on water. This projectile recoils and ricochets off the monster afterwards and ends up crashing into water as well.

The crew paying attention to what had just happened, which included the injured Miss Fortune, saw what struck the krakken.

Floating in water, it turns out to be a hulking, broad creature with green eyes and sharp teeth, alongside it's clean white body and yellow armor plating on it's back, the side of it's stubby legs and the back of his incredibly large, clawed hands.

With the same hourglass symbol as Heatblast's located on it's black forehead, this gave the crew the idea that Ben had yet again transformed, this time, into a completely new transformation.

"All those cannon balls didn't work on it, so I used my own Cannonbolt!" Ben, claiming to be called Cannonbolt, boasted, a smile forming on his big face.

As he does, Valor finally drops the unconscious Little Knives beside Fortune and perches on the stump behind her. Fortune glanced back and forth between Valor and Cannonbolt, seeing the effort each of them are going through to protect her and her crew, even when they've been nothing but hostile towards them.

Maybe... She was wrong about Ben...

However, her thoughts are interrupted when she sees the water bubbling beneath Cannonbolt. Focusing all her remaining strength to yell, Fortune cried out to the rotund creature, "BEN! Look out!"

It is unfortunately too late as the krakken returns from getting knocked and rose from the depths, mouth first as it swallowed the unsuspecting Cannonbolt into itself, devouring him alive, much to the shock of the crew.

However, Ben's feathery companion was the first to recover from the shock, as anger fueled Valor's screech after watching his partner get vored. In a fit of rage, the giant blue eagle attempts to fly towards the krakken, but Fortune instinctively, and quite quickly, grab Valor by his foot with her left hand, stopping him from making a terrible mistake as he flails in Fortune's grasp. "You stupid bird! Stop! You'll get yourself killed!"

The krakken, satisfied with it's first kill, the beast saunters through, ready to strike the entire crew with it's incredibly large arms. Fortune gives up on trying to stop Valor, so she let's go of him and grabs one of her hand cannons beside her and aims at the beast.

Seeing the krakken approach her vulnerable crew, the great captain distracts it to keep it away from her followers, firing the last of her ammunition at it's face. "Hey! You overgrown sea leech! I stole your eggs!"

"Captain!" Durga yelled out from the sinking front half of the boat.

"Go! Swim away! Find our rafts if they're still intact and get out of here!" Fortune ordered them all, prioritizing them above all else. She then continued her one sided battle with the krakken and fires the last of her ammunition at it's face. "I'm right here! Come on! Do it! Kill me!"

Her provocative yelling works as the beast practically roars at her, ignoring the vulnerable crew to silence this annoyance in front of it. The beast rears back it's head, ready to devour Fortune as well.

Fortune can practically hear the panicked yelling of her crew at the sight of their captain about to die. Even the sound of water splashing already made her think some of them began swimming towards her in a futile attempt to save her.

It pains her to let her crew watch the one they believed in and would follow to end just die here, but right now, it's all she could think of. They will always be her top priority, and right now, she needs them to live above her own safety.

_"I'm sorry... Ma... Pa..."_

Her little moment was interrupted when Valor swoops in and attacks the krakken by it's bulbous left eye, using his sharp talons to wound and gouge it out, making the beast reel back in pain as it bellowed an angry roar.

"What the fu..." was all that escaped Fortune's mouth before trailing off, bewildered by the scenario before her. She thought she had seen everything... but a bird attacking a sea monster? There seems to be a first time for everything.

Just as Fortune thought Valor had doomed himself, with the krakken now glaring at him with the intent to kill visible on it's only eye left, it opens it's mouth to roar...

... but something inside it flashes green, with the emerald light shinning out of it's mouth. The Krakken then stops to attack and starts rumbling on it's own. The beast then flails around, trying to reach for anything while one hand held it's own gut, like something was coming out, which greatly bewilders Fortune and her entire crew. Some of them even took this chance to finally get their captain away from danger.

The confusion amongst the pirate hunters were all answered when the beast opens it's mouth again to roar. Not out rage or bloodlust, but pure _fear_. As warm light erupts from it's mouth, a spot on it's stomach slowly glowed before turning into a bright yellow orange. With one fell swoop, the krakken let's out one last cry of defiance until it implodes from it's own stomach, creating a large explosion of fire, blood and guts...

...with Heatblast smack dab in the middle of the explosion, arms stretched out and fire erupting from his body, creating the implication _he blew up the krakken from the inside out_.

Fatigue must have caught up with Heatblast as after this attack, he drops from the air and into the waters as the beast's blood, guts and other insides rained from the sky, all while what's left of it's body, mainly half of it's chest, it's neck and head and everything below it's waist, falls down on the water, floating... Dead.

With their foe slain, the whole crew cheers and yells happily, even if some of them get splattered by the blood of the beast. Fortune was still in shock, however, eyes wide open and jaw agape, the sound of her crew celebrating muffled in her own perspective.

She was all too ready to give up her own life, but the smiles and warmth of her crew was what always brought her joy. It was stupid of her to think her sacrifice would be acknowledged by them without retaliating to save her, considering how much they looked up to her.

Had she died, she may have died in vain if her crew decided to avenge her right then and there.

Perhaps the best way to cherish her crew is to actually be there for them. And it's thanks to Ben and Valor that she and her followers live to fight another day.

As Heatblast rises from the water and swims up to one of the Krakken's rib bones floating on water to hang onto it, with his flames having been snuffed out by the water and the fiery cracks on his body dimming, he takes a look at the people he had just saved. It warms his heart to see them all alive and happy, but one look at Fortune glaring at him made him jump a bit and frown.

But to his surprise, Fortune seemingly chuckled to herself, shook her head and looks back at him, lifting her injured right arm to give him... an approving thumbs up and an affectionate smile.

This made the shapeshifter smile as well, a flash of green light changing him back to human form and giving Fortune a thumbs up as well, just as Valor lands nod the rib as well and perches beside his human partner.

Hero time will never get old for him.

* * *

Residents of Bilgewater were a bit surprised to see Fortune and her crew return in rafts, especially after they had just left in their own ship. But what surprised them more is the fact that several body parts of the krakken, and even it's corpse, are chained to each end of the rafts, all pulled behind them to bring back to the Slaughter Docks to sell the body parts to the butchers.

As their rafts head back to the docks, Durga patches up Fortune's wounds while Little Knives, now awake, is currently cuddling and hugging Ben's left arm affectionately, like a cat to it's owner, all four of them on the same raft. Apparently, if Knives hates you, she'd want to kill you, but if she's taken a liking to you, you're immediately her friend, regardless if you agree or not. So when news that Ben risked his life to protect their crew, she latched onto him immediately and thanked him so many times, he lost count. But it didn't bother him. In fact, he's happy she finally changed his mind about him.

"...Hey."

Ben turns his attention away from the young girl clinging to him and look at Fortune, having her bandages wrapped around her wounded arm by Durga.

"We tricked you, yelled at you and threatened you... Then our ship, your only means of getting to Ionia, got torn in two... You had no other reason to stay and help us. You could've told your bird to fly you back here at the docks and left us to die to pay for what we did... Why didn't you?" said the captain, curious of Ben's motives while Valor, perched on the edge of the raft, looks at him, waiting for his answer as well.

With an innocent little chuckle, Ben simply smiles at Fortune and replies, "It's the right thing to do."

Fortune smiles back and snickers to herself while Durga suddenly blushes and touches her own chest. "Wow. Are you single?" Durga suddenly asks, as if changing her view on Ben as well just as much as Knives and Fortune herself had. This earned her an elbow to her side by her own captain, telling her to stop. "What? He's my type! I just didn't like him at first because you told me to."

"I am single, yes." Ben indulges her question, which only made Knives laugh and Fortune to roll her eyes, while Durga gasps happily.

"Oh, don't encourage her..." Fortune groans while Durga grumbles.

"You never let me get have a boyfriend." The ship's sailor complained until Fortune starts pinching her ear like an angry mother.

"Because every boy you get, you immediately break up with after a one night stand." The captain berated Durga, who could only mutter noises of pain while Fortune yells her words into her lifted ear, all the while Knives finally let go of Ben and just laughed at her two companions.

Ben couldn't help but laugh either, as the sight of people, while teasing each other, are still enjoying each other's company brings him joy as well. He can't even remember the last time he just sat down with a group of people and enjoyed the moment with them.

_"I wonder... if they still miss me..."_

Fortune sees Ben smiling at them, causing her to let go of Durga and smile back, before telling him, "I suppose I still owe you a ride to Ionia. I know a guy at the docks named Pyke. Used to have a crew but he started working alone when he wasn't getting enough pay. I'll pay for the expenses of the trip and tell him where to take you." she tells him.

"Huh? No, no. You don't have to! I'll still pay up on my own. You guys have lost enough as it is." Ben replied, reaching for the sack of gold he has. Before he could bring it out, however, Fortune held his hand to halt him from doing so.

"It's the least I can do for the trouble we caused you. Besides, it wasn't your fault our ship got torn apart. That geezer tricked us into taking krakken eggs so it'll lead it to us to be attacked." Fortune reassures the young man. "Plus, you already helped us by killing it and keeping the eggs intact. These will all sell a lot at Slaughter Docks." She gestures to the body parts being towed behind their rafts while some of the rafts carry the crates with the krakken eggs in them.

Ben sees her point so he just puts back the coins in his pouch, prompting the captain to let go of his hands. "Guess so. Well, thanks, Miss Fortune."

"Sarah."

"Huh?" Ben mutters when the beautiful captain suddenly spoke a name.

"Sarah Fortune is my full moniker. You've earned the privilege to call me by my first name." She replies, a much more gentle smile on her face.

Ben chuckles as he and the pirate hunter stare long and deep into each other's eyes, respect written on their expressions as they have both gained it from one another.

"Okay. Sarah... I'll come and visit from time to time. We can all hunt monsters again if you guys get another ship." says Ben.

Sarah laughs and lightly punches Ben on his shoulder, an affectionate gesture as she grins, telling him, "You're always welcome here, Ben."

Durga and Knives saw the way Fortune looked at Ben. She isn't just greeting him and looking at him like a new friend. It's the same look she always gives them. The same look she gave them from when both of them, and the rest of the crew, all first met their captain...

Ben is now part of the crew.

* * *

As they watch the much smaller ship of the sailor known as Pyke sail away into the open seas, Sarah and her crew wave at Ben, who's with Valor at the very back of the ship, waving goodbye to them as the boat goes farther and farther from the docks and into the sunset.

As some of the butchers of Bilgewater mark the Krakken's eggs and body parts while sawing off the parts still intact, Durga approaches Sarah as she continues to watch the ship sail, all while the rest of the crew scatter.

"So... You actually trust him? Or was it an act?" asked Durga.

A small snicker came from Sarah's lips before holding onto the bandage covering her wound. "I saw the look at his eyes. He's not like most foreigners. If he says he'll come back to help, he means it. So at the very least, we have a connection outside of Bilgewater."

"And at best?"

"We have an extra mouth to feed and give rum to whenever he visits."

"And you still won't let me sleep with him."

This gesture made Sarah scowl again as she pinches Durga's ear once more and lifts it up, making Durga rapidly mutter, "Ow ow ow ow ow ow ow ow I'm sorry!"

"Quit thirsting for every pretty boy you see and get me some rum."

"Okay! I'm sorry!"

* * *

Stepping down the stairs leading from the upper deck, Ben, with Valor on his shoulder, walk towards the man known as Pyke. Bald, with a dark complexion, wearing torn and worn out clothes while a red scarf of sorts is wrapped around his neck, the man didn't seem one for talking as he held the wheel and continues to sail his boat.

"So... How long do you think it'll take for us to get to Ionia?" Ben asks, in an attempt to start a friendly conversation between them.

"If you keep quiet and not distract me, it'll be early in the morning when we get there." Pyke replies without taking the time to even face Ben, who immediately got the message that he doesn't like talking at all.

"Okay... Sorry. I'll be downstairs, if you need me." The shapeshifting young man apologizes and takes Valor with him to stairs leading to the brig below. With the brig containing only barrels of rum, an empty treasure chest and a box full of knives and a single rifle, Ben just goes to a corner to take off the caped cloak he had around him the entire time, revealing what he had been wearing: a brown jacket with white outlines on top of a green shirt with a black line down the middle, with the number 10 emblazoned on his chest. He has brown pants with a white belt around his waist, black combat boots a strange, clockwork-like symbol on the back of his jacket — the symbol of Piltover.

"Guess we'll just sleep it off, Valor. It's gonna be a long trip." Ben spoke to his partner before sitting down in the corner, placing his cloak over him like a makeshift blanket. Valor, not wanting to be left out, scooches over and placed himself inside the cloak as well, cuddling with Ben and nuzzles his head against his chest. Elated by his partner, Ben simply smiles and strokes the blue eagle's back to help him relax more, sharing their warmth as they eventually both doze off after a long, cold day.

* * *

_"I know you'll do the right thing... You.. always have..._

_...and you always will..."_

* * *

_**BLAAAAANG!**_

The loud sound of a horn blares from outside the ship, awakening Ben and Valor from their stupor. Rudely awakened, the duo groggily get up from the corner they slept on and head upstairs. But upon doing so, the two are greeted by a beautiful sight.

A beautiful port awaits them as the clear blue waters flow and splash against the pure white stone floors of the docks. Several magnificent trees of all kinds are scattered across the land and stretch for miles ahead of Ben and Valor's sight while large, white mountains springing with life stand firm. People of all walks of life travel across the place as they carry with them several kinds of things like baskets of fish, flowers, buckets or vases of water, bags of bread and so many more.

There are even different kinds of animals, all distinctive and unique from the other, like winged cat-like beasts, birds of many colors, giant lizards with turtle-like shells and even literal flying fish.

One good look at this peaceful sight and Ben knew where they are: Ionia, the First Lands.

"Ionia, at last!" Ben cheered to himself and hugs Valor tight, which surprised and slightly annoyed the blue avian, but he's still happy for his human companion.

"Shut your trap and get off my boat already. You're lucky I didn't put any Bilgewater emblems on my ship. Ionian's don't like us very much." Pyke, still there, complains while giving Ben a glare.

"Right, right. Sorry. Uh, thanks for the ride, Mr. Pyke!" said Ben, heading for the rope ladder on the boat to get off of it, with Valor flying ahead of him. "Have a safe trip back home!" He added before finally stepping on the wooden planks leading deeper into the port.

Pyke didn't bother answering, opting to just grumble to himself and turn the wheel around, sailing his boat away so he can finally get the hell out of this place. All the pretty colors and peaceful nature of the place is making him dizzy. "'Stay safe' my ass…" the grumpy sailor mutters under his breathe, his boat now returning to open waters.

With the Bilgewater sailor away, Ben turns around to face Ionia while Valor once more, perches on his shoulder. "Alright. First, we ask around where the Kinkou temple is, cause I honestly forgot. It's been years since I was last here. Then, we ask if they have some space left for us."

Valor tilts his head slightly at Ben's words and made a small chirp. And as if he understood what the eagle said, Ben replies, "No, you're right. First, smoothies. Second, find the temple and third, ask for a place to stay. Alright, Valor. Time for a much more... relaxing trip. Ready?"

Valor makes a small screech to respond, which makes Ben smile as he and his feathery companion take to the busy streets of Ionia.

The duo ask around town where they can buy smoothies and learn of several different locations that might be selling them. After going through most of them, he found out that they're mostly sold out, which greatly disappointed Ben. However, the owner of the last shop reassures him by saying a nearby ramen stand sells smoothies as well, though they don't have the variety of many flavors the other shops have.

Ben responds with excitement that he doesn't care, and that he just really wants a smoothie today, especially since that Buhru Salt Juice literally left a bad taste in his mouth. He thanks the owner and heads off to the ramen stand. And to his delight, the stand is not only open, but does indeed have smoothies. He orders a bowl of plain noodles and two mugs of mango smoothies.

The quiet old man, after preparing his order, hands his noodles and smoothies to him on a tray. Ben then hands a few pieces of gold to the nice folk and takes a deep breathe before grabbing the chopsticks to start eating his noodles. All the fighting and the entire trip had left him famished.

He took one big load of the noodles and swallowed them before sliding what's left, including the soup, to his side so Valor can eat as well. He lets his partner eat the rest of noodles as he then indulges himself to the magnificent smell of sweet mangoes emanating from one of his mugs of delicious mango flavored smoothies. "Oh how I missed you, my love." Ben jokes to himself and takes a big gulp of it down his throat.

"Heaven" is the best description Ben could place on the smoothie he had just drank as he takes a moment to stop and breathe, sighing in relief as he tasted the mango flavor still on his tongue while a drip of the drink spilled below his lips. After wiping it off with his sleeve, he cheered to himself, "Finally!"

"Did it taste well, young man?" The old shopkeep asks with a smile on his face as he cleans his stand.

"Yeah. Are these homemade?" Ben asks, taking another sip of his smoothie.

"Why yes. Made from the farm me and my family own. Homegrown mangoes and a little bit of milk and sugar too. We also have strawberries, blueberries, limes and apples. My dear dyeda loves preparing the lime ones."

After finishing his mug, he picks up his second one, all while listening the the nice old man. While he does, he looks at his next, full mug with the beautiful, swirling, golden liquid contents as he prepares to drink. Then it got him thinking. Stories about family made specific gears in his head start working as he lifts his head up and looks back at the shopkeep. "Say, do you still have lime smoothies? And maybe a couple more ramen noodles?"

* * *

At the top of one of Ionia's many beautiful, pearl white mountains, several trees are gathered through the road leading to the Temple of Koeshin, the home base and headquarters of the Kinkou order, defenders of Ionia and walkers between the material world and the spiritual planes.

It's Ben's goal to head there to meet some old friends in the hopes of finding some council, solutions to his problem and... himself.

_"I hope master Shen's not too busy..."_

He thought to himself while carrying covered cups filled with lime smoothies and a very big covered bowl filled with a special ramen recipe, with pork cutlets and boiled eggs. An old friend of his love them. "Hey, Valor, fly ahead of me and see if you can find anyone at the gates. I don't wanna go there and find out theyre busy or it's an off day today for them."

Valor screeches as a response, jumping off Ben's shoulder before taking to the skies, flying off to do what he had been asked while Ben himself continues his walk.

Now alone up the road, Ben could hear and feel the silence much clearer. The soft breeze against his face really helps him relax, like he could get lost in just walking these forests alone. It honestly reminds him of Uwendale and the time he spent there.

A part of him wonders... Could he ever go back there one day?

Unfortunately, the moment he had to himself was broken as the quiet and peaceful road emphasized the sounds of footsteps that aren't his. Grass being stepped on rapidly, followed by branches snapping up and down and leaves falling from the trees.

As obvious as it already seems, it's definitely clear now: Someone is hunting him.

Ben ceases his trek and stood still as his eyes scan the twisted treelines. For every leaf that drops, his alertness doubles. He tries to read his attacker's movements as best he can, but with the trees acting as cover, casting shadows in the rest of the forest, his chances of seeing them are lower than his chances of giving up on smoothies.

So, realizing the futility of his actions, he challenges his foe, telling them, "I know you're there! So come on out!"

"I already did."

Ben heard directly behind him and, not given the time to turn around to face his enemy, a dagger found it's way to his throat, several inches away from piercing it, keeping Ben in place, lest the blade cuts open his neck while his assailant adds an extra layer of immobilization by grabbing his left wrist, as if they knew what he's capable of.

"You got a lot of nerve coming back here, monster."

His foe spoke, their tone that of a female. Ben knew he had no choice but to play along. "That's rich, coming from you, assassin. Here to lose to me again?"

"From where I'm standing, you're pretty vulnerable. I can stick this kunai into your throat, leave you here and no one would be this wiser."

Ben, however, did not despair as he chuckles at his foe's threat, even turning his head slightly to his left to give her side eye. "Your threats are empty. I know you won't attack me."

"Oh really? Give me reasons why I won't, Piltovan."

"One, I have something you want." Ben tells her, raising his right hand holding the basket of the smoothies and ramen he bought from the old man earlier. "And two... You clearly missed me."

The forest was filled with silence once again as the assassin kept her blade over Ben's neck, but Ben himself is simply giving her a smile.

The quiet woods was then broken when the assassin started laughing and lets go of Ben wrist. She even puts away the kunai and held her sides in an attempt to not break down into just laughing on the floor.

Ben turns around with a genuine smile to see this "enemy" of his, who turns out to be a girl with dark, raven hair tied into a ponytail with a green ribbon. She has a green mask cover her nose and mouth, emphasizing her amber colored eyes. She has a sleeveless and backless top that exposes her midriff and the draconic tattoos on arms and her back. With this, she also has a short, dark green hakama that goes down to knee level, just above her jika tabi sandals, and is tied by a dark brown obi rope belt that also holds her big pouch found on her rear.

With a chained scythe kama hanging on her back and several kunai strung by her belt, the girl continued to laugh before finally jumping into Ben for a hug. Ben nearly failed to catch her but found his balance immediately and hugs her back with his now free left arm. The two break their embrace after a short time and the girl tells him, "It has been, like, what... 14 years... since we last saw each other! Of course I'd miss you!"

"Hey, I got too busy that I haven't had the time to come." Ben comments before the two take a walk together, trekking towards the Kinkou headquarters with each other. "And I see you still have my toy kunai I made for you. Miss me that much, Akali?"

"This little doodad?" Akali, the girl Ben seems to consider an old friend, comments, flipping the dagger she threatened Ben with earlier. She slides her fingers across it's blades and it turns out to just be wood, painted to look like steel. She tosses the toy kunai into Ben's hands as she places her hands behind her head, the two continuing their little walk together. "I promised that I'd hold onto it. And I did. It's all I got to remember you. So yeah, I missed you. You got a problem with that, you dweeby doofus?" She changed her mood from sentimental to teasing so fast, and yet Ben did not feel uneasy, simply laughing it off as a response.

"I prefer 'Cheeky Changeling', thank you very much." He adds, a similar hint of teasing as Akali in his tone, but his smirk turns into an affectionate smile just as fast, telling her, "But I appreciate you still remember me... Even though we were like... ten years old when we first met."

"Psssh. Like I'd forget a loser like you!" Akali teases him again, which made Ben playfully claw at Akali, who simply jumps away to dodge his fake attack as she giggles.

"Hardy harr, you're soooo good, Fist of Shadow. More like Fist of Shallow." Ben sarcastically fired back at her, which made the ninja girl playfully punch his shoulder.

"Come on, I'm kidding! You're great! Really great!"

"Are you just saying that now because you realized I still have your noodles?"

Akali laughs it of and she suddenly brings up a bowl of ramen and her own chopsticks— hey, wait a minute!

Ben looks back at his basket only to find that only the cup of smoothies are left in it. "Did you just—?!"

"To answer your previous question, no, I didn't call you 'great' because you have my ramen. I called you that because you have me my ramen." Akali interrupts him before pulling down her mask, revealing her entire, beautiful young face and she uses her chopsticks to pull up the noodles from the bowl and place them into her mouth, slurping a huge batch of them. "But sherioushly dough! You're da besht!" She added, talking while her mouth is full.

"Freaking ninjas..." Ben spoke under his breath but Akali just laughs it off and swallows the rest of the noodles down her throat to clear up her cheeks.

She then pulls up another batch of noodles with her chopsticks, but instead of saying them, she gestures them towards Ben's own lips. "Here. Sorry for making you 'feel bad', doofus."

Rolling his eyes, Ben complies and takes the noodles into his mouth fed to him by Akali before swallowing. "You can really make it up to me by letting me stay at the Kinkou for a bit." He tells her.

"Sure. But it's not my say. I'd love to hang out with you more, buuuut you know master Shen gets the final word. And you know how he's like."

"Well, let's hope he still likes me after all these years."

"Oh, I can already tell, he'd greet you with open arms like a long lost son. Now say 'Ahhhh'…"

"I'm not a baby! Besides, I bought that for you."

Akali rolls her eyes and eats more of the noodles, gulping them down while the two of them keep walking, with some of the pink colored leaves from a new set of trees falling on their path. "Fine, but if I get a stomachache, I'm blaming you." says the green clad ninja.

Ben and Akali near the temple as the leaves kept falling around them, the wind blowing past them as Akali continues eating while Ben twirls the toy knife his ninja friend returned to him.

Just as Ben expected... the company of an old friend would bring him ease.

All he needs now is a home to stay in.

* * *

Somewhere else, in the deepest, darkest depths of a large, toxic city built underneath a cave, a bald man, clad in rusty armor with empty chemical tanks attached to it via pipes, tries his best to run as he stumbles over several trash bins and barrels filled with noxious chemicals.

Panicking, he tosses aside the barrels and stands back up, only to slip on the same liquid the barrels spilled the first time he knocked them over. The ooze burnt his skin, making him yell in pain. The clattering of metal from the alleyway he ran from startled him, however, and his fear overshadowed the pain he's feeling and adrenaline kicks in, making him stand back up and run away once more.

He turns a corner and found what seems to be an elevator leading up, so dives in, stands up once more and hurriedly pulled the lever within the elevator operating it. A series of electrical whirs and the grinding of gear on one another fills him with a bit more ease as the elevator doors close and felt it rise up. However, he needed to make sure the one chasing him can no longer get to him, and he took a peak out the circular window pane on one of the elevator doors.

From what little he could see in the darkness outside, he sees the humanoid silhouette of his assailant at the very bottom, from where his elevator came from. In his point of view, it looks like this enemy of his is just standing there, looking at his lift take him away to safety. He didn't even make any other attempt to chase him, like find another way up or a switch that will bring the elevator to a stop or maybe even bring it back down.

The armored man took a sigh of relief and let his body cease most motor functions so he could just lie down and take a breather, believing himself safe as he slid down the doors and rests his back against them.

But what he did not see is the bright flash of red light from outside his safe haven and all of a sudden, the elevator rumbles and quakes, waking the armored bald man from his tired stupor. Unfortunately for him, it was too late to peak out the window or process what's happening as he felt the elevator suddenly descend faster than he could even think. Before he knew it, his consciousness fades as the elevator drops and everything around him seemingly explodes.

**SLAM! CRASH!**

Several things awoke this man from his unconscious mind just after the crash. First, the immense heat around him. Opening his eyes, he found himself surrounded by fire that came n two colors: a natural orange and a strange green. If one took a closer look, the green flames are coming from the spilt chemicals mixed with fire, creating this strange phenomenon.

Second, he felt a massive sharp pain in his legs. He took one quick look and found himself buried beneath metallic debris that all came from what used to be the elevator. The pain he's feeling is the fact that some of the debris had been torn and turned into sharp metal that pierced his legs, immobilizing him beyond repair as his blood leaks out from his wounds.

And third... footsteps.

He drove his attention away from his own pain again and sees it... The beast... His chaser... Casually walking through the flames he seemingly created as he approaches the helpless and injured man.

"It's funny, Singed..."

The man, named Singed, heard his assailant speak. Simply hearing him start to monologue made Singed panic, causing him to start pushing the debris off of him, sweat running down his bald head due to all the fire around them, as deep inside, he knows what he's doing is futile.

"You're the Mad Chemist of Zaun, known to kill any man or woman trying to chase you down without even having the need to lift a finger. All you need is a chemical spill from the little jars on your back to leak out gas to kill them. You pride yourself in your unpredictability and your running is more on baiting your foes rather than running away of fear. And here you are, running away, terrified for the first time in ages... And from something you have no idea how to deal with..."

Singed was still listening, but the rest of his body is still working to free himself from all the metal he's been buried under, but to no avail. Unfortunately for him, his enemy has gotten near and even steps on the debris, pushing it against Singed further as he felt the sharp metal in hos legs dig deeper and the rest of the metal beginning to crush his body.

"Such bitter irony... For you."

Another bright flash of red light appears and all of a sudden, Singed is horrified at what he sees that all he could do now is scream in utter terror.

And the sound of metal crushing flesh into a paste echoes throughout Zaun.

"Now... everything you have... is mine."

* * *

**AAAAAND that's a wrap! Whew! That was a lot! Again, sorry it took so long but here it is! Ben gains new friends and meets old ones, all while an unknown shadow rises without his knowledge. Who could it be and what do they want? Find out next time!**

**So I suppose I should acknowledge a few things then:**

**First, yeah, I just killed Singed right here because I have no idea what to do with him... and I never really liked him. I have a much better mad scientist to use later on and he's got more character than just "woohoo I'm crazy and literally toxic". Stay tuned.**

**Second, there will be some explanations on how Ben knows some of the Runeterra champions already. I promise. Most especially Akali, Caitlyn and Vi. Got a lot of stuff to unpack for them, plus two other champions connected to Ben, so it'll be VERY heavy.**

**Third, better get this out of the way, OC aliens (or in this version, I simply refer to them as "transformations") will be very limited, and most of them are creatures that exist either in Ben 10 canon or LoL canon, like Chimera Sui Generis (Vilgaxians), Kraaho, Yordles, Vastayan or Dragons (if you ask which dragon, from Ben 10 or LoL, my reply would be, "Yes.")**

**And finally, no "harem". Now first, my definition of a "harem" is when a guy is in a relationship with multiple girls AT ONCE, _NOT_ when a multiple girls LIKE the same guy. So while it is inevitable for Ben to attract some of the girls (which already happens in canon Ben 10 anyway, like, how many girls pined for him in Omniverse?), Ben will end up with just ONE SINGULAR GIRL. To add to this, not EVERY girl will like Ben romantically. So yeah.**

**So with those out of the way, I hope to see you all next time. Please leave some reviews and criticisms so that I may take them all into account for the next chapters. Hope you're here to stay and have a good day! Bye bye!**


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